One Of Those Days
by Ondine03
Summary: Modern A/U. Scarlett is a neurology resident and Rhett is her supervisor. May have epilogue in the future but complete for now.
1. Chapter 1

_A modern AU. Scarlett is a neurology resident and Rhett is her supervisor. No, I don't know any doctors who think like Scarlett does, this is fiction and I'm trying to stay in character. Scarlett is not PC even in this Universe, so consider yourself warned. Events and people from the book are used or discarded to suit my fancy. All patients are made up. All doctors are made up. All nurses are made up. The hospital is made up. I own nothing and merely indulge myself._

* * *

"There's another one of yours in room fourteen", the Dr Meade, the geriatric ER attending, had said grandly, sweeping past her with his mousy scribe and even mousier PA in tow.

Scarlett Butler, MD was seated at the main Nurse's station in the ER and looked at his retreating form with ill-concealed loathing. He had already referred her three crazy people and a drunk going into DTs and it wasn't even nine o'clock yet. She wasted a few pleasurable seconds imagining a slow, torturous death to whoever had suggested that this elective was a great way to prepare for the boards next year.

Who had it been? Oh yes. Ashley. It figured.

She sighed and pulled up the hospital's electronic medical records. Room 14, Amanda Wright.

She clicked on the name and opened the triage note. "28 y.o female, no previous medical history. New onset numbness/weakness in her left leg, began 2 hours ago."

Scarlett sighed again, trying to decipher if 'new onset numbness' was code for another crazy person. But crazy people usually didn't have a virgin chart until they were twenty-eight.

Unless she'd recently moved to this area.

Scarlett clicked on the lab results. Negative toxicology screen, etoh 0.00.

Not drunk, not high, at least not on anything they could measure. Well then. She pushed herself up, and rounded the ER until she came to the 10s. 13. 14.

Deep breath. Fake smile. Square shoulders. Run hand through hair. Enter.

A brunette, well dressed, recently showered, in male company. Obviously educated. Worried, but not frantic. Yes, she had woken up like this. No, she had never had anything similar happen. Yes, there was an episode of dizziness last summer, but it had gone away after a week or so, and …

On physical exam, she had an obvious left foot drop, and complete loss of sensation below L5. Great. MRI, lumbar puncture probably. The day was getting better and better.

Pager. Maybelle Merriwether, the new intern, who'd probably bungled the LP on the inpatient unit as usual. And Ashley, the junior chief, was worse than useless at anything requiring manual dexterity. Actually, he was useless at most things.

Incredible that she had ever fancied herself in love with the guy.

Pager. Scarlett finished charting room 14 (rule/out MS, pending workup) and called back first Maybelle, then the charge nurse. The new admission she had sent up had arrived on the floor and the orders were dropped on transfer. Could she please reorder them? Sure. What. Ever.

She took the elevator up to the floor and helped Maybelle, wasting at least forty-five minutes walking her through the procedure for what must be the fourth time this week. She, Scarlett, had never been this hopeless as an intern. Beeeeeeeeep. The ER again. Could she come down?

Two admission, legit this time, beginning stroke. History, exam, chart, orders, repeat. Call floor nurses.

Pager. Dr Picard from radiology. The MRI wet-read was suspicious and could she come see. She crossed the hospital, took the elevator to radiology and wound her way through several dark rooms to Dr Picard, who had her patient's brain and spine suspended on his illuminating computer screens. She saw the tell-tale periventricular white spots before she even entered the room, repeated at irregular intervals down the cord. Crap Crap. MS. And what was worse, this would net her another hour long conversation with everyone crying. Scarlett hated crying people. Had always hated them, even before becoming much too personally acquainted with grief. If she had wanted to deal with feelings she would have gone into psych like Melly. Why did Melly have to die? Melly knew how to talk to crying people and make them think everything would be ok. Even being in a wheelchair at 50, and that's if they were lucky.

The brunette didn't cry. She asked sparse, sensible questions about workup and treatment, and agreed to be admitted for a round of steroids. Mature people were odd, Scarlett decided, especially if they were about her age. Being this together wasn't normal.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeep. Four more admissions. Lunch had long come and gone and she hadn't even had time to eat a sandwich.

And then, to round off a crappy day, came the 58 y/o with tongue fasciculations. Luckily, she didn't have to be the one to tell him he would be dead in three years because he hadn't had his EMG yet, and there was nothing they could do anyways. She told him to make an appointment with his outpatient neurologist and let them deal with it.

But still, crap. ALS.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Another lumbar puncture Maybelle needed help with and she had run out of needles. Could Scarlett please ….

She took the elevator to the neurology ward and swiped the key to the supply room from the hook next to the charge nurse desk, without notifying the charge nurse like she was supposed to. She walked down the corridor, unlocked the room and began searching for the specific lumbar puncture set she wanted.

"Scarlett. Imagine finding you here," a lazy voice mocked. Scarlett looked up briefly.

Rhett. Immaculately dressed as always, in dark trousers and a pink silk shirt and tie that only he could pull off without looking effeminate. Her to-be-ex husband, and unfortunately, also her consult attending and interim program director. Without his usual swarm of adoring med and PA students batting their fake eyelashes at him and hanging on to his every word.

Must have sent them home early.

She pulled out the lone blue lumbar puncture set out of the tray, heedless of the others that lay scattered about, and made towards the door. He blocked her.

"You may want to clean up that mess. The nurses here work hard enough."

"You would know all about that," Scarlett jeered, but without much energy. It had been a well known secret that he had been messing around with Belle Watling, LPN from Trauma while still living with her. She tried keeping her eyes averted so they wouldn't tell him she found him attractive. Rhett had always been much to perceptive for his own good.

"You wound me," he grinned. He stepped inside, closed the door with one hand and pushed her against the wall in one smooth motion. Then he kissed her. Scarlett struggled half-heartedly, but he was strong enough to keep her in place with one hand, keeping the other on the door knob.

Jerk. Bastard.

If only he wasn't such an excellent kisser.

She finally twisted her head away. "Go to hell, Rhett."

"You're surprisingly hard to resist when you look at me like that," he said. There was an echo of mild reproof in his voice.

Great. Now it was her fault. She glared at him openly, which he repaid with a look of mock innocence.

"I only came by to ask you to dinner. Dr Meade told me you'd gone to the floor when I looked for you downstairs. Are you free later?"

She scowled. "What for? If you want to discuss the divorce have your people call my people."

"Just dinner, Scarlett. Catch up. The kids' vacation. Talk. We're friends, remember?"

Right. Friends. Whatever. She suddenly noticed how tired she was. It had been a draining day. Wade and Ella were in Ireland with Pa for the summer, so no one was waiting for her at home. And her fridge contained nothing but last week's leftovers, that would probably walk off on their own if she opened the door.

"Fine. Dinner."

She would probably regret this.

"Short call takes over at five, right? You'll need an hour for charting. I'll pick you up outside of the ER at six."

She realized that she was staring at his midsection. She suddenly giggled.

"You may want to start wearing a lab coat."

He paused at the doorway, and winked at her. "You may want to fix your lipstick."

Scarlett looked around for an LP set to throw at him other than the one she was holding. She needed that one.

He grinned, and stepped out of the door into the corridor before she could grab one. "See you at six."


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks for the reviews! Iris, yes, I am in the medical field. This chapter won't have any medical lingo, I promise, although I will need it sometimes just to illustrate the sort of world they live in. I'm attempting to see if the larger themes of GWTW translate into our world, and how a modern woman might have approached them. I've always wondered at Rhett saying how alike they are, because they were in some ways and not at all in others. Maturish content, nothing graphic._

* * *

Morning sunlight eventually made its way through the rich wooden shutters and woke her. Scarlett experienced a moment of acute disorientation, trying to swim through a sea of dark maroon sheets to reality. They felt unbelievably soft, high thread count hotel quality sheets. Much nicer than anything she owned.

That thought woke her up with a jerk.

It was daylight, and she was in Rhett's downtown townhouse. In his bedroom.

In his bed.

Scarlett sat up, her long black hair tangled around her face and flowing over her shoulders and back. She turned crimson as last nights memories came flooding back. And this morning's. He had set his alarm for six-thirty but had apparently been up earlier, kissing her awake, feeding her strawberries and chocolate from a tray and then proceeding to handily preempt the excuse she had mentally prepared for herself of being drunk last night. Before she'd even had a chance to utter it. And she'd made no attempt to stop him.

Quite the opposite.

She sighed. She was on short call today, so she didn't have to show up at work until four-thirty. She picked up her clothes from the various places on the floor where she had discarded them last night, and searched for a couple of hangers in Rhett's oversized closet. She smirked as she looked around. Trousers, shirts, ties, all color-coded and evenly spaced. The bedroom was new – rich, dark wood furniture, the maroon sheets. A chocolate duvet cover. Everything was dustless. Spotless. Alien.

He had taken only a few things from their house when he had left, mostly the paintings he had had before they were married and a few hardwood side tables and an Amish rocking chair they had brought in Lancester. His taste had never jived with hers. Of course, in retrospect this had been the least of their problems.

Hanging up her clothes, she made her way to the master bathroom. Anther place she hadn't seen before. Dark grey granite all over, shot with dusty black grain. Not even a toothbrush in sight. Thick, grey towels on towel warmers. She mentally compared this place to the overflowing chaos at her house … kid's toothpaste, hair brushes, clothes, wet towels, dog hair…. and sighed. Easy for him with just himself to clean after. With a housekeeper and a cleaning woman. And not on a resident's schedule.

Scarlett felt a sudden, hot surge of resentment, against his freedom, his station in life where he could create a space like this for himself. If _this _is who he really was, what in hell had he been doing with a twenty-three year old single mother of two from a farm in Georgia? The whole thing had been doomed from the start.

At least, there was nothing here or in the bedroom that suggested he regularly had female company over.

Not that _she_ cared about what company he kept.

She took a shower and dried herself off vigorously in one of the huge towels, dropping it on the floor after she was done. Upon further perusal of his cabinet drawers she discovered he didn't have a blow dryer. She remembered losing her hair band somewhere in bed, so she walked around it, toes sinking into the thick carpet, until she located it on the floor next to Rhett's side. The side where Rhett had slept, she corrected herself mentally. There was no _his_ side, and especially no _her _side.

There was a stack of books on the bedside table. She glanced over them - French, German, or some other language with a lot of dotted vowels. She wondered if he thought of her sometimes, laying in this huge empty bed of his, and whether his musings were ever anything other than a wish to have never met her.

She twisted her damp dark hair into a lose knot, trying to think about what to do next. Her skirt and blouse were a crumpled mess. She also didn't have any fresh underwear. She put on one of Rhett's cotton shirts, rolled her clothes into a pile, and proceeded to make her way downstairs.

She located the laundry room next to the kitchen, threw the clothes into Rhett's sleek European-style front loader, and started a short cycle, washing everything she had worn last night. In the interim, she went to the kitchen, hopped on one of the bar stools by the elevated breakfast nook and fixed herself a strong, black coffee from that shining stainless monstrosity that chopped up beans into coffee dust and dispensed single cups.

Stirring the coffee thoughtfully, she let herself remember.

~~oo~~

He had picked her up in his midnight blue BMW at six o'clock as promised, and taken her downtown to an excellent Italian restaurant she had never heard of, with small dark tables tucked away into corners and waiters that seemed to materialize for brief seconds to refill wine glasses and then disappear into the shadows. He had behaved beautifully by anyone else's standards, asking about Wade and Ella, their vacation in Ireland and her father's health, but had artfully dodged her feeble attempt or two to introduce heavier topics.

As always, she found his direct attention slightly overpowering, and adding to her confusion was that she wasn't sure what he wanted with her. He had kissed her earlier in the supply room. And now he was making charming small talk, but his eyes gleamed in the old ways that told her his mind wasn't on the wonders of historical Dublin and the geophysics of the Giant's Causeway. To cover her discomfort she partook of quite a few glasses of the excellent oak-tinged Pinot Rhett had ordered, so many that even she had to agree it would be unsafe for her to even attempt the hour's commute back to her house in Hampton.

In retrospect, she should simply have ordered a taxi and bother the costs. At the time, it had seemed to make perfect sense for Rhett to take her home with him.

After their separation, he had moved into an exclusive, gated community on the Waterfront about ten minutes away from the hospital. After waving to the guard he had parked the car in front of a row of townhouses, deceptively dainty on the street side but with backs that stretched out far towards the Bay and ended in generous terraces and private piers. Most of the houses were occupied by doctors, lawyers and other wealthy professionals with a passion for sailing and without small children. Rhett's thirty-two-foot sail-boat, that he occasionally used for trips with colleagues or even for Wade and Ella on weekends, was anchored out there somewhere amongst the other masts.

They had walked up the steps to his house in silence, his hand resting possessively on the small of her back. He had barely finished closing the door behind them before he kissed her again, pushing her against the wall as before and not even perfunctorily asking for permission before biting her lower lip and doing things to her mouth with his lips and tongue that were neither restrained nor respectful. Scarlett had sent a mental post-it note to her fogged brain to remember to be insulted in the morning, before folding like a card table and wrapping her arms around his neck, mostly to keep from fainting. His rough hands had roved over her, molding her like a potter would a wet piece of clay. Some vase thing or other in the foyer had crashed to the floor but neither of them had paid any attention. He had picked her up like a feather and carried her up two flights of stairs into his bedroom, his heart beating erratically against her ear as he crushed her to his chest. He had looked at her then, sprawled on his bed, taking the lust in her green eyes, before smiling in the most infuriating self-satisfied way and kissing her all over again. He_ had_ stopped himself once, she admitted, just before taking her, murmuring "do you want me?" with a throaty sort of growl, lips hovering millimeters above her own.

Which was a really unfair thing to ask someone whose brain is drowning in a sea of dopamine and thrashing for air. He as a neurologist should have known that.

And of course she had nodded, and pulled his large body over hers, and things had gone downhill from there, at least if she took the uncomfortable perspective of her dignity.

~~oo~~

She left the breakfast nook and wandered into the living room with its breath-taking view over the water. Sailboats danced in the distance, and fishermen in ships that looked like giant insects hauled in their second catch of the day. Scarlett curled up into a corner of the black u-shaped leather couch, drawing her feet up on the upholstery. Reflecting on the events of the last twenty-four hours she concluded it had been a cheap trick to use her feelings against her like this. For whatever it was that he had wanted from her. There was Belle Watling and her ilk for casual sex, and he was much too experienced to rope himself back into a potential emotional entanglement with his to-be-ex-wife for something any nursing - or medical - student would be happy to give him.

She had seen the shameless beasts look at him, in their short skirts and decolletes just barely modest enough to avoid censure.

And recently the gossip columns had been linking his name with Miss Anne Hampton. Senator Hampton's daughter. Twenty-five years young, glossy brown hair, hour glass figure, most highly eligible. So he had "female companionship" covered as well.

She sighed. Wanting her and loving her had not been two different things in the past, even if she had been unaware of it, but like most men he was certainly capable of wanting without loving.

Whatever, she decided. Especially since he seemed quite willing to bed her, but hadn't said a word about the really important topics between them, like Bonnie, and what had happened in their marriage. Although, if she was honest, sex had been an issue as well, both before and after that one night she still couldn't remember without blushing. Rhett had held himself back, and she had been inhibited by past bad lays- and fancied herself in love with Ashley. And they had missed out on ….this. Whatever this was.

She let her gaze rove around the silent room. The paintings, the statues, some of which he had brought back from Europe, but mostly created by local artists he patronized. Not a personal item in sight, nothing to hint that he had had a family or even a daughter. Scarlett felt distrustful and bristly, like a cat in a dentist's waiting room. There was a digital photo-frame on the side table, and she picked it up, watching the slow progressing of images he had saved. Here was Bonnie, her black curls flying. Wade, and Ella. In various poses and faces. His mother, his sister Rosemary. And an image of herself, at the beach a few years ago, laughing, suntanned, holding Bonnie, both covered in chocolate ice cream. It was too much, the emotions the images evoked too intense, and she set the frame back down, turning it away from herself.

She didn't notice the tears that had started running down her cheek. Damn the man – he didn't even have a tv set in the living room, although she knew he had installed a pair in the upstairs bedrooms he had allotted to Wade and Ella. What did he do here, read? She noticed a telephone next to the picture frame, with a couple of saved messages, and without any compunction Scarlett pressed "play". A couple of fundraisers. Then a young female voice, thanking him for a lovely night at the Opera. Last week. Scarlett tried to think. That would be Anne. And the Opera, too. Classical music put Scarlett to sleep, and she had never hesitated to let him know. Other women were apparently much more on their game.

Of course, it was only recently that she had cared about pleasing him.

She remained lost in thought, until a knock on the door startled her out of her reverie. She jumped up, wiped her eyes, and sprinted downstairs. The bottom of the stairs was free of broken porcelain. Apparently Rhett had removed the carcass of the vase thing before leaving for work. She opened the door to a young man in uniform, gravely handing her what looked like a suit cover, and then excused himself, obviously uncomfortable to be in the presence of a young woman wearing nothing but an oversized man's shirt. Scarlett giggled. It was a good thing Rhett was so much bigger than she. She closed the door, hopped up the stairs again and then opened the zipper. Inside was her lab coat, that she had left in Rhett's car last night, washed and perfectly pressed. A green skirt and a white blouse in her size. A black bra and matching panties in a plastic bag. Her pager. And a note – "In case you need this. –Rhett." Scarlett rolled her eyes. So typical of him.

He had said he would pick Scarlett up at four and drive her back to work. Before kissing her one last time and telling her to go back to sleep.

It was going to be an interesting day.


	3. Chapter 3

_Thank you for the lovely reviews, you are all much too kind. My description of Rhett's house came from a comment he made to Scarlett in the book that he'd rather live in a well-run hotel than a home, so it made sense to me he'd create an impeccable but impersonal space if left to his own devices. And he just sounds like someone who would color-code clothes. :)_

* * *

At four o'clock sharp, the car horn sounded, and Scarlett stepped outside into the bright August sunlight, filling her lungs with the salty sea air. Rhett had left the motor running. She opened the door, got into the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt. "Thanks for the dress", she purred. The blouse and skirt he'd sent fit like a second skin. He smiled, his black eyes taking in her lithe form like flowers sopping up raindrops.

"Did you eat?"

"I made myself a turkey sandwich."

"Did you leave the mayonnaise out again?"

She tossed her black hair back saucily. "Yes. And left crumbs all over the countertop."

He sighed, but with some amusement lingering in his face. His clean streak and Scarlett's natural messiness had been one of the many personal quirks that had been endearing initially but drew more and more cross-fire as their marriage deteriorated. A fight about potential Salmonella poisoning could be stretched out for weeks if one was as versed in the finer points of marital guerilla warfare as the Butlers.

Scarlett stared ahead during the short drive. He pulled into the main hospital campus.

"Where do you need to go?" he asked.

"Lewis Hall entrance. I need go up to Four East to take sign-out from Ashley."

He raised his eyebrows, but didn't comment, his large brown hands steady on the wheel. When the car stopped behind the hospital and he had still said nothing further she finally snapped.

"Well Rhett, it's been lovely. Send me a post card sometime, will you?"

The ironic eyebrows went up, and the corner of his mouth went down. "Scarlett. For once, try not to be too melodramatic if you can help it."

She glared at him with storm-blown green eyes. "Melodramatic my arse. I'm just not sure what the protocol is here. Do we shake hands? Promise to write? Meet up in the supply room for a shag once a week? You tell me."

He ran a hand through his hair and smile wryly. "If there is a protocol you and I would probably ignore it anyways." Scarlett tensed up further, turning her body away from him. It was all hopeless and pointless and she was going to …..

"Are you on call tomorrow?" he asked, perhaps surprising even himself.

Tomorrow was Saturday. "No," she said, with the accents of someone suspecting a trap.

He hesitated briefly, then reached across her and opened his glove department. "I can't pick you up tonight. I'm going to be out at least until eleven, probably later. It's ….. been prearranged and I can't break it off now. If you want to you can drive over to the townhouse after you're done here and let yourself in. Mrs Dilcey will have dinner in the oven. If you're tired you can just go to sleep."

He was holding out a key.

There was a sudden shadow on her face, which he misinterpreted. "I apologize. I shouldn't have presumed. If you'd prefer you can just go home."

She took the key from his hand, her green eyes troubled and introspective, her mind scampering after rabbits.

"I'll think about it."

~~oo~~

She walked through the parking lot and let herself in through the back door of the hospital, swiping her ID against the card reader. She walked through several long corridors, swimming against the day shift traffic leaving for home. Several people she met recognized her and nodded or called out, but she paid them no heed. She got into the elevator, riding up to the third floor by herself.

Dr. Ashley Wilkes, the junior chief, was waiting for her in the resident room. He looked tired and overwhelmed. Scarlett felt a twinge of remorse that she had bullied him into going to medical school with them by playing heavily on the fact that Melanie really really wanted to go - and would never have gone without him. Which had been true enough. He'd coped well enough for the first two years, which were mostly theoretical, but had started struggling after MSIII and the start of the much harsher ward rotations. He wasn't suited to the pace, and he wasn't suited to the long odd hours, even though the patients loved him and the nurses were fiercely protective of 'their boy'. However, affection and respect are two distinct matters, and Scarlett knew they would never depend on him in a crisis. The staff had seen too many residents come and go to be deceived about the qualifications of any, no matter how much they adored his fine manners and sweet disposition. She suspected Ashley knew as well. It had been Melanie who'd been the surprise, who'd blossomed like a flower after starting her psychiatry residency, calmly competent and radiant in her mission. The hospital's sad and weary had lost a tireless advocate and gentle voice after she'd passed away from complications of an ectopic pregnancy. Not to mention what it had done to Scarlett's peace of mind.

A sudden jingle filled the air, something Rhett had told her was…. Schubert? Or Brahms. Someone old, and German, and dead like Melly. Dead like ... Scarlett hated the all-too-familiar tune. The few short notes that were always played on all the loudspeakers throughout the hospital whenever a new baby was born on the ObGyn floor. It followed her through the corridors and into patient rooms when she worked. It pervaded into bathroom stalls and the cafeteria. It startled her out of the rare periods of sleep on night call, mocking her, taunting her losses.

She saw Ashley wince at the sound as well.

She sat down at the large scruffy conference table that dominated the room, squaring her shoulders. "So."

He gave her a list of new admissions and the follow-up cases that they were currently taking care of, as well of people in the ER that needed to be seen.

She watched his golden hair glimmer in the lamplight and felt nothing. When he was done, he smiled with relief. Sign-out is the official transfer of responsibility from one physician to another, and any crisis that happened now would be Scarlett's. He did not stay to make small-talk. She did not mind.

She stopped by Amanda Wright's room, who was responding nicely to the steroid pulse they were giving her. There was still in her face and demeanor the unearthly serenity of those who have accepted their inevitable place in the hands of the Parcae, a serenity Scarlett neither possessed nor coveted, but which disconcerted her nonetheless because it reminded her of Melly's last hours on this earth: her pale skin white like the hospital sheets after losing too much blood, but her eyes shining with gratitude for what she'd called her wonderful life.

Wonderful indeed, to die at the age of thirty, leaving a husband and a small boy behind. And a deceitful best friend.

Scarlett checked in with Mrs Elsing, RN, who was Charge Nurse for the night shift, a fierce woman with thinning white hair and thirty years of experience with inpatient neurology. Scarlett's acerbic tongue had put her at odds with the nursing staff ever since July first of her intern year, but there was a kinship between them in spite of their mutual dislike, the cold inalienable kinship of competence that unites all true professionals everywhere, and never more closely than here at the crossroads of death and life.

"I'll be in the ER if you need me," Scarlett said, in lieu of greeting.

Nurse Elsing nodded. "We have a lot of sick people on the unit."

And Scarlett knew that was the closest Nurse Elsing would get to letting her know she was relieved Scarlett was on call tonight.

There was a key in her lab coat pocket.

~~oo~~

At ten o'clock she signed out to the night shift after a relatively calm evening that had given her much too much time to think. She walked across the corridor to the employee parking lot, again swiping her badge to open the door. Her footsteps echoed in the half-empty parking lot. In the distance, she heard the wail of an ambulance and the thud-thud-thud of the helicopter blades by the Heart Hospital.

Her green Honda was almost the last car on the 3rd floor.

She started the engine, drove to the ground floor and waited until her windshield patch opened the electronic barrier of the gate. Driving out into the street, she stopped again.

Ahead was the right turn she would have to take into the Midtown tunnel to get the other side of the river. Home.

She couldn't do it. She'd thought it would go away, that she'd steeled herself, but she was frozen in place. The darkness came too swiftly, the horror was too great, and she couldn't breathe. Almost instinctively she turned her car to the left, in the direction of the Waterfront. Ten minutes later, she arrived at the gate of the townhouse. She identified herself to the guard, who opened the barrier without argument or questions. Rhett must have called him, she scowled to herself, trying to resurrect some residual belligerence out of the uneasy shadows of her brain. She parked the car in his driveway, got out, and let herself into the door.

There was casserole in the kitchen as he had promised. The mayonnaise had disappeared from the countertop, as had the crumbs. Scarlett wasn't really hungry but forced herself to eat something anyways. Leaving her plate in the sink after she was done, she wandered upstairs, feeling the sudden impulse to avoid, to sleep in one of the kids' beds, but chided herself for being childish. She instead hopped into the dark maroon waves of Rhett's sheets, drew the chocolate colored blanket over her head, and fell asleep almost instantly.


	4. Chapter 4

_Again, thanks for the kind reviews. I was very worried about Rhett's motivations in re-establishing intimacy my period fic (because of the responsibility inherent in sleeping with a woman who may have your child) but I am less concerned here. A modern guy would expect a modern girl to take care of her side of the fence, and take what he wanted if he could get it even if it's just sex. But knowing Rhett, it will turn out to be more complex than that. Skyebugs, the baby chimes are unfortunately very real and I have cursed them multiple times for pure auditory annoyance because there's no escaping them, especially if you're trying to sleep. I can't imagine what it does to those who have suffered losses. Again, mature-ish content, nothing graphic._

* * *

They ate breakfast on the wide terrace overlooking the Bay. Gulls squawked in the distance, and the gentle lapping of the water created a soothing background tableaux for Scarlett's overwrought nerves. He had awoken early again and called her down after the table had already been set. Scarlett behaved like an ill-mannered guest, allowing herself to be served; for once not out of a general lack of consideration for others but out of a squeamish desire not to attempt anything that might appear familiar or domestic. There are shoals inherent in the picture of a couple preparing breakfast together that are absent even from the wildest coupling; shoals that she was not sophisticated enough to navigate.

Rhett overplayed the role of host almost to the point of caricature, pouring her coffee and feeding her sweet rolls with butter and jam and fleshy cut-up cantaloupe for dessert. When they had eaten, he offered sweet espresso in thin gold-rimmed Turkish cups that burned Scarlett's lips. Rhett drained the dark liquid slowly, and then set his cup down.

"So," he said, in much the same tone and manner that Scarlett had used last night with Ashley. "I confess I am rather …..interested. Why did you come back here, Scarlett?"

She scowled. "I don't know what you mean."

He looked at her, his expression watchful, guarded, the look it had worn for many years during their marriage when he was searching for …what?

"As much as I'd like to tell myself that my charm is so irresistible that you couldn't help yourself, my vanity hasn't completely obscured my ability to reason. The …protocol of seduction would have told you to go home and wait for me to call you. You're not flexible enough to derivate from the protocol on your own unless propelled by more powerful forces. And you never did ask me where I was going last night, Scarlett. That, if nothing else, was a dead giveaway that something is on your mind."

It was an elegant trap, and it snapped shut mainly because she had not seen it coming. She could hardly profess now that she did find him irresistible, and she wasn't nimble enough to come up with a plausible alternative to the truth without significantly more lead time. She scowled, and then said, like a petulant child: "I don't have to tell you anything."

He got up lightly, walked over to her chair, and pulled up her chin to look at her eyes. "But you do, Scarlett. If for no other reason than that I will find out anyways and you will lose your chance to establish an unwarranted reputation for candor."

She still said nothing.

"What was it?" A vague dark undertone had made its way into his voice, and she shivered.

"It was the tunnel," she finally whispered.

"Oh." His expression became bland, and he stepped back, leaning against the balustrade.

"When?"

"Thursday morning," she said, miserably. "It was raining. The windshield fogged up. I thought I couldn't see. I felt like I was choking. I had to stop in the middle of the tunnel and there were cars honking and …" The images came crowding back, of herself trying desperately to inch the car forward, the echo of the horns in the tunnel, the feeling of the walls closing in, the nightmare vision of being engulfed by water. "I thought I would die," she whispered.

"Has it been happening again?"

"A few times. Never this bad." She wiped a tear from her cheek. "I can't drive through the tunnel again Rhett. I can't."

His eyebrows were up but he did not appear upset. "That may be difficult, considering we are surrounded by tunnels in this part of the city. I do however feel honored that you chose to stay with me over the call room."

"Your mattress is better." She grinned feebly, trying to push the disturbing images back into her subconscious. "And you serve breakfast!"

"The honorable Dr. Wilkes could have put you up." He was upset after all! Would she ever learn how to read him? And the unfair insinuation about her and Ashley ….

"If all I wanted was a place to stay I could have gotten a hotel room," she hissed. "You know that."

When she saw the glint in his eyes she realized that yet another trap had been sprung.

"Indeed. We've established why you've chosen to remain on this side of the water, which is progress from where we were five minutes ago, but we still haven't quite established why you're …..here."

"Perhaps you are just that irresistible," she scoffed. The admission was permissible now, because it could appear like a lie.

"Perhaps," he agreed, with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I am not ruling it out completely."

Years of marriage to Rhett had shown her that even a good offense was rarely transmuted into a victorious defense, but anger made her forget her hard-won insights. "You invited me, remember? You tell me why I am here."

"Ah, but you are on my turf now my pet. I get to ask all the questions."

"I don't see why," she huffed.

"No," he agreed, conversationally. "You wouldn't. But I will humor you. You stayed because you didn't want to drive through the tunnel. And you didn't take a hotel room or sleep at the hospital because you didn't want to be away in case I called you over the weekend, or stopped by the house, which I might have done. You see, once you start telling the truth it just flows." He pulled her against him suddenly and started kissing her again, his mouth hard against hers. Despite herself, she felt a sharp frisson of arousal, and her body was just starting to melt towards his when he pushed himself away.

"Rhett?" she wondered.

"I promised myself I wouldn't touch you in anger. Never again."

"You didn't force me", she whispered, thinking of that other night long ago.

He sighed. "I know that. But the dynamic we had going on of me overpowering your inhibitions to get a reaction out of you got old fairly quickly. It's fatiguing to always have to bring all the sexual energy to the table. It starts to feel abusive and it corrodes a man's self-esteem. I have no intention of ever being with a woman again who doesn't really want me."

"It wasn't like that when we …"

"No, it wasn't", he agreed. "and I was nothing if not pleasantly surprised. I had wondered what it would be like without the spectre of the honorable Dr. Wilkes hovering over us."

That was it. She was going to throw something at him. "I hope you satisfied your curiosity," she hissed. Her eyes alighted on the butter knife.

"Do curb your murderous impulses," he grinned. "I won't deny you were a terrible lay for most of our marriage but during our last few encounters I could tell there is potential. No technique, of course, but in our present situation that would have worked to your disadvantage."

She stared at him, caught somewhere between rage and confusion. "Because you would have had to have learned it from someone else," he clarified.

"I haven't been seeing anyone," she yelled, although she'd had no intention of telling him that.

He laughed loudly. "You shouldn't give yourself away this quickly, Scarlett. You used to be much more adept of keeping a man in suspense."

"That must have been before I met you," she said, and allowed her shoulders to slump.

Somehow, that gesture moved him as her wrath had not.

"I'm sorry Scarlett. However, this was a very enlightening conversation. We should do it again sometimes." He stretched his hand out to touch her windblown hair. "I find myself curiously indebted to your phobias, a thing I'd never thought I'd hear myself say after the many times I've had to drive you back and forth through tunnels in days bygone. Shall we take the boat out? It's fresh enough and there were dolphins last weekend."


	5. Chapter 5

_Thank you very much for the reviews, I always get so much to ponder from them. Our couple make difficult acknowledged lovers. I can understand why MM never attempted it. Yes to those of you that said Rhett was very mean in the last chapter. I didn't like him either. I still don't quite like him, but at least he's trying._

* * *

Scarlett got up to clear the breakfast table. It was as if their conversation about her fears had tied their past to this present, forming a bridge to a place where she felt comfortable touching his crockery. Which was progress of sorts. She still wasn't entirely sure what she had divulged during that painful conversation that had drained the tension out of his frame but she was grateful, despite a lingering feeling of ill-usage that she planned on venting on him at some point in the future when she felt less exposed.

"You'll need some more things before we go out on the water," he said. "Do you want to brave the tunnel with me and drive up to the house or shall we ransack the mall for beachwear?"

She thought for a moment. "Mall."

They'd enjoyed going shopping together in the past, one of the many things Rhett had always had an entirely un-masculine patience for.

When they walked outside Scarlett grinned suddenly. "I want to drive your car." He gave her a mock pained look, but tossed her the keys. She settled into the black leather, making the motor roar. The deceptively heavy 5-series Sports Sedan hummed beneath her hands like a wild thing, and she laughed with glee when Rhett's hands gripped the seats after a particularly close turn. She suspected he saw through her false bravado but decided to play along for his own reasons, and both humans and machine made it safely to the downtown mall parking lot without even a scratch in the lacqeur.

They browsed through the department stores, picking up a bikini, flip-flops, a hat, a wide wrapper, sunglasses, sundresses, a pair of jeans and t-shirt, a blow-dryer and an outrageously low-cut black nightshirt that Rhett had tossed at her, twinkling provocatively.

"I didn't say I'd be staying over," she'd laughed, the glitter and hub of the mall and a stomach full of sweet rolls having returned some of her natural flirtatiousness.

Of course, the admiring glances of the other male shoppers had helped.

"I intend to convince you," he'd said. She peeked a glance at his face and was surprised at his expression. And she realized with sudden insight that this gesture was a commitment of sorts, that he couldn't or wouldn't yet verbalized, and she'd smiled and given him a look so full of stars that his breath caught.

"If you keep looking at me like that we won't be going anywhere today."

Her iphone pinged. She unlocked it with a quick swipe, and laughed.

"Look. Pa sent a picture". Wade and Ella kissing the Blarney Stone, both grinning widely.

"When will they be back?"

"Just before school starts. They're going to Cousin Colin's horse farm in Western Ireland next week."

"I'm sure the children will enjoy it."

She showed him the other pictures they had sent earlier that week, and it was almost, almost like the old times that had never been.

~~oo~~

Back at the house, they unloaded their cargo. Scarlett changed into her new bikini, pulling a white sundress over it. The remaining items went into a large Pottery Barn Beach Bag Scarlett had found in Ella's room. Some cokes and cold beer for the fridge. Sandwiches. Sunscreen.

Rhett's sailboat, a sleek 32-foot European-made Bavaria, was tied to the pier. It went by the name of Bonnie Blue. It was odd, Scarlett thought to herself, that he had eliminated every casual reference to them in his townhouse with the exception of the photo frame, but had kept this ship. Rhett, who'd sailed competitions in his youth called it a "toy" that was compact enough for one person to handle and good for taking company out on the Bay, but not more. It was roomy enough for six under deck, with comfortable upgrades such as a teak folding tables and hardwood floors. He tossed her a life jacket, carefully unwound the ropes, and started the motor to back the boat out into the Bay. He then positioned both mainsheet and jib to catch the south-eastern wind; the boom swinging in a wide swoosh over Scarlett's head when it changed direction. Waves lapped gently against the hull as the boat gained momentum. Scarlett stretched out on the bench, letting the sun shine on her face. Occasionally she would glance at Rhett, standing at the wheel, wind in his dark hair. He seemed lost in thought.

About half an hour later, they arrived at a small, isolated beach that had no roads leading up to it and could only be reached by boat. The curve of the shoreline hid it from direct view, and Rhett threw the anchor, then unfolded the back hatch of the boat to create a platform which included a ladder into the green water.

They had not seen any dolphins.

Scarlett, who had taken off her sundress to reveal her new bikini, spent a relaxing half hour diving around the ship, occasionally spraying water in Rhett's direction, whose maximes in life included one that said water was not for swimming. She glowed suntanned and golden in the early afternoon when she stepped back up on the deck, and saw him watching her with dark unfathomable eyes. She closed the distance between them, defiantly this time, never breaking eye contact until her sleek wet body made contact with his frame. Her lips tasted of sun and salt water.

~~oo~~

An hour later, they lay in the aft cabin below deck, drowsy and contented.

"To think we could have been doing this all along," she said.

He smiled at her, not unkindly. "Don't blame me. You had so many headaches over the course of our marriage that I wanted to send you in for a CT scan just in case."

Scarlett giggled, but replied provocatively: "You were no help."

"No," he agreed softly. "I don't suppose I was. Being rejected so often and early in our marriage was quite a blow to my vanity but I could have talked to you about it instead of just berating you. It was the damndest thing though that you'd start to react to me and then suddenly shut down every time. I never could quite figure it out, and after the last few days of unexpected marital bliss I understand it even less. Was it Ashley?"

"In part," she said honestly. "Part of it was you though. I could always tell that you wanted me to want you and I just wasn't going to give in. Not because I wanted to be mean but because that was the one thing that I could do that got a reaction out of you. I had no idea I was frustrating more than your sexual appetite," she smiled.

"Yes," he agreed. "You were."

"It helps to tell a girl," she admonished.

"Does it."

"Yeah. Like, when she still has a chance to do something about it. Not when you're also telling her that you've bought a townhouse by the hospital and you're leaving."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"Why didn't you? Tell me I mean." She was brave now, and heedless, as she had been long ago, as she always would be.

His rough hand stroked her face and her back. "I wasn't about to hand a toddler a pair of scissors." He held up his hand to ward off the martial light glinting in her green eyes. "I know you weren't really a toddler and that being treated like a child does nothing to arouse lust towards the offender. But you seemed so young to me. I am seventeen years older than you, Scarlett. The same age difference that separates you from Wade. I was very set in my ways before you burst into my life. In retrospect it was probably a mistake that we work together, especially in this program. It was bad enough when you were a medical student but when you became my resident it was worse, because the whole hierarchy dynamics that came into play and compounded the age difference. I couldn't turn it off.

"Such insights," she said.

"They were dearly bought." He pulled her close and kissed her again. "And it didn't help that I knew you were thinking about the wooden-headed Dr. Wilkes all the time. Those co-ed call rooms gave me more sleepless nights than I care to admit."

She laughed. "Rhett. You've been watching too much Grey's Anatomy. You know what night call is like. They page you, like, every three minutes. What would we do if they called a code and we had our pants down? Run down the corridors naked?"

He grinned. "I was thinking more along the lines of wild passionate kisses by the soda fountain." He traced his thumb over her lips. "It irritated me to no end that you worked together, and that as a fellow resident he had a camaraderie with you that I could never have. And then those dolts go and elect him junior chief this year. More reasons for the two of you to closet yourselves together. "

"And you think you wouldn't have heard about it if I'd gotten together with Ashley? That place is a gossip mill worse than a lady's sewing circle back in Georgia. I heard about it the very next day when you and Belle Watling…"

"Ah."

"Do you still see her?" Scarlett asked, determinedly. She rolled over on her stomach, supporting her chin on her hands, looking at him intently.

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's a rather long story, Scarlett."

"I have plenty of time," she said, green eyes a narrow slit. "And what about Anne Hampton? You were out with her last night, were you not?"

An almost infinitesimal pause. "I was," he acknowledged. "At the Symphony Orchestra with her father and a couple of his friends. They were playing Mahler."

She stiffened, and tried to get up. He put out a hand to stop her.

"And you know better than anyone that I didn't bring her home with me."

"Because you knew I was there!"

"You were there at my invitation, if you recall."

"No reason not to have two girls on hand in case one gets a headache. They could rotate ….."

She'd heard enough. She slid out of the bunk, scampered up the stairs, and dived into the water, swimming dolphin style to the beach. She sat herself down at the edge of the sea, between water and earth, watching small shell fragments glisten beneath the waves. More broken things.

Another splash. So he could swim after all. And not too shabbily. She watched him wade towards her. She hoped a crab would bite him.

"Scarlett. Don't be such a …" he stopped.

"What. A child? I thought we just had a whole long conversation about why this is a bad ….dynamic," she flashed. "So?"

"Your complexion has always been at its best when irate," he smiled. "Probably one of the reasons I teased you so much. However, I concede the point. And I apologize, Scarlett. It stands to reason you wouldn't be any happier about Anne Hampton than I am happy about Dr. Wonderful."

He stretched out his hand. "Truce?"


	6. Chapter 6

She didn't take it. She rose from the sea, Venus-Scarlett- Anadyomene, and gave him a curious look, reminiscent of young wolves eyeing a prey or a foe. She waded into the water, swam back to the boat and pulled herself up on the deck. A splash told her he had followed.

Half an hour later they set for home, this time sailing against the wind. Rhett kept the boat on a complicated criss-cross pattern that for the time being seemed to absorb all of his attention.

They passed three dolphins on starboard. She did not see them. He did not point them out.

On the horizon, towards the middle of the Bay, was a yacht. She put her chin on her hands and remembered.

~~oo~~

The wild strange year immediately after they were married. She had been twenty-three. Rhett, whether from a desire to impress or to amuse his new bride, had taken her to the clubs and the ski resorts and the exotic vacation spots – Gstaad, Monte Carlo. Dubai and South Africa. And on a luxury yacht. Owned by a friend of the prominent Butler family in Charleston, heir to a real estate empire. A trip around the Mediterranean.

She remembered the surprise at being asked to take off her high-heeled shoes before even stepping off the gangway, and being handed a pair of slippers. To protect the wood floors, the liveried servant had told her in response to her questioning expression.

A ship full of people wearing haute couture and slippers. And that was only the beginning of the oddness.

"Everyone with a credit line can buy a Bentley or a Maserati these days," Rhett had told her. "A yacht however …. you can back a yacht into a pier in Monaco during the racing season and invite people to stay with you who were unable to find hotel space, and thus incur long-lasting obligations." He'd given her a searching look, and had smiled. "Feel free to amuse yourself. Just stay on the good side of the chef."

"Why the chef," she had asked, diffidently.

He'd raised a sardonic eyebrow. "The chef is the one person that can get you removed from the boat, as many a yacht captain has found to his detriment. Yacht captains, and minor passengers like us, are worth a dime a dozen. However, a good cook that can reliably serve good fare to his guests is someone every boat owner will want to keep in good spirits."

She had tossed her head, not comprehending that he had just told her both hard things and kind things about life.

She had submerged in the glitter of those days. They were amusing people, and her status as a medical student gave her minor curiosity value, but mostly they treated her as Rhett's attractive toy. The men were charming and attentive but she couldn't follow their conversation. The women, for the most part, were openly disdainful. The private Greek islands that they visited were glorious.

The pulse and the crest of the activities separated her from Rhett much more than she'd envisioned, and she discovered that she was lonely. She had too much to drink. She told herself she was having fun.

It had ended one night when she had stumbled onto their hostess in a compromising position with what looked like a fitness trainer. Worse than the shock was that the lady in question had seen her, and Scarlett could foresee her immanent destruction reflected in the slow narrowing of those painted eyes.

She had run back to Rhett demanding to be taken home.

He had laughed uproariously, and told her to watch out for the grimy sex-video that would probably be circulating the internet within the week. She had punched him. But he had arranged for transportation back to Charleston, and allowed her to decompress in the relative serenity of his mother's house before flying them back home.

When she returned the pace picked up considerably at school and she couldn't have gone back to that life even had she wanted to. She now remembered those days only rarely, but understood in some vague way that they had caused her damage, that their fangs still lay coiled underneath her solar plexus, nipping at vital nerve roots like Nidhoeggr gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasill. She had lost, not just innocence, but a dream.

The fluorescent light of the hospital wards had been an antiseptic, and a sanctuary. She had collected Wade and Ella from her father's house, vowing to be a real presence in their lives, her newfound maternal instincts aided by Rhett's love of children and ability to finance a nanny and a housekeeper.

And they had settled into their new existence.

~~oo~~

Rhett didn't use the motor until the very last moment, bringing the Bonnie Blue against the pier.

At almost the exact same moment, both of their pagers had beeped. Scarlett dug the chief pager out of her beach bag, Rhett unclasped his from his belt. They pulled out their identical phones and listened with almost identical expressions to the information. MVA on the interstate, multiple victims. They were calling in all available backup. Within ten minutes, they were back on the street to the hospital. Scarlett wore jeans and t-shirt under her lab coat, her dark hair heavy with salt water. She hadn't taken the time to put on make-up. She didn't care.

They gave the car to the valet in front of the ER, and checked in with the attending on call to make themselves useful. Multi-car-crash, 10 victims. They were shown the neurology cases: Three teenagers, all drunk, all unrestrained. One had been DOA. An older couple. All with closed head injuries. The sorting hat had already sorted one of the boys into surgery to decompress his active bleed, while Scarlett and Rhett looked at the others. The night shift, composed of Maybelle and the 2nd year resident, stood by, looking slightly helpless.

Three hours later they were back home in Rhett's kitchen with a box of Chinese and a bottle of ginger ale in front of them. The boys had been stabilized. One of them was still in critical condition after surgery. They debriefed over peanuts and then merely listened to the silence drifting between them, the vast hallowing silence that death and blood cast over our smaller struggles like the full moon moving over twinkling stars. They didn't dare drink alcohol in case they would be called back in, although the wine bottle looked tempting to both.

Scarlett thought how much like the last year of their marriage this was, before he'd left, when they had had nothing but this. Grief, helpless guilt, and their work.

He was wrong, she thought, if we hadn't worked together it would have broken much sooner.

They showed the salt water off their skin and hair. Then they went to bed, both with phones and pagers on their night table. He slept, his right arm slung loosely over her waist, while her cat-like eyes burned on for hours in the darkness before they finally extinguished.


	7. Chapter 7

_Thank you for the kind reviews! I hope this chapter clears up some of the questions about what happened with Bonnie and in their marriage and isn't too much of a break with the canon. This is a hard hard place to write about as a mother. And the estrangement is common for parents in that situation, although it is often the mother who enters into a symbiosis with the child and the father who tries to live in alternate realities._

* * *

Carrier, the test had said.

Scarlett hadn't been overly concerned. Plenty of people were carriers. It was, after all, a very common gene variant in the Caucasian population. They had tested Rhett, as well, and suddenly the odds went up to 1:4.

They had not looked at each other. Neither one wanted to voice their fears.

Scarlett had had the amniocentesis they had previously refused based on her young age and negative Quad screen. They had had to wait three days. She would remember that phone call until her last breath, the fasely cheerful voice of the nurse . "We would like for you to come in to discuss the test results."

She had known then, even though she hadn't wanted to believe it. She knew the inflections of those professionally trained to deliver, or hide, bad news that does not concern them personally,

Rhett had gone with her to the Maternal Fetal Medicine Center, his face pale under the swarthy skin. They both resisted pulling the doc card and calling beforehand, as if these few hours of not-yet-knowing could be stretched through dogged determination into a lifetime of blissful ignorance, into an avoidance of this hovering fate. There had been healthy babies in the waiting room, their mothers chatting idly about breast versus bottle and the benefits of co-sleeping. They seemed to be living in another world.

The Ob/GYN and the geneticist had been gentle, telling them of improved therapy and increased survival rates, and offering them an abortion. Scarlett had understood at best half, the voices drowned out by the pounding of the blood in her ears.

She had been 21 weeks at the time. She had been terrified, and tried to discuss their options, her submerged Catholicism warring with the agony of the realities she anticipated, but Rhett had shut her down, violently and unmovingly. She was having this child.

When Bonnie was born, she had had blue eyes and black curls. She had been a beautiful baby.

And she had tasted like saltine crackers when they touched their lips to her skin.

~~oo~~

The discussion had been brief, or rather, there had been no discussion. Rhett had decided that Scarlett would continue with her schooling. She had been in her third year of medical school and dropping out would have been impractical. Unspoken was the assumption that she would not have done a very good job caring for her.

He had taken an open-ended sabbatical from work and devoted himself to his daughter with a ferocity that had astonished everyone, especially Scarlett. He spent nights on the internet, reading the hospital data available through the Cystic Fibrosis Network and comparing hospital and treatment outcomes. Bonnie had had a particularly fulminant version of the gene defect, prone to life-threatening pneumonias and needing constant vigilance.

Scarlett had escaped to her work, and to the time she could spend with Ashley. Ashley, who seemed to represent everything that was not her current life. Ashley, who told her that she was strong, and beautiful, and brave, and whose eyes, she fancied, hinted that there could be much more between them, if only …..and she had clung to the life-raft of his unvoiced affections.

She had even suggested Rhett move to a different room with baby Bonnie – ostensibly because she needed her sleep in the brief hours off call. He had not argued, there had been no fight, no clearing of the air. He simply arranged for the crib and his things to be moved into one of the guest rooms.

She had regretted the decision almost immediately. The withdrawal of his attention – for she had had his attention, although she had been unaware of it until the moment it ended – left almost no spark in the dreariness of her days. Sex, once he stopped initiating it, dropped down to nothing. She belatedly appreciating his tenderness, the reassuring touch of his skin, the comfort of his arms.

Over time, they had settled into the routine of two strangers who occasionally shared the same roof. He had flown Bonnie to the CF pack-leader, the Children's Hospital in Minneapolis, regularly, and often stayed for extended periods, stays that became longer and longer after their separate sleeping arrangements had cemented themselves. She never asked what else he did there, or whom he saw. When gone, he was a poor correspondent, responding only briefly to her texts and never initiating phone calls. She missed them. She did not know what to say.

~~oo~~

At the age of three, there had been a lull, and Bonnie started to achieve milestones. Suddenly, her life blossomed and filled with birthday parties and zoo visits and pony rides, the last of which Scarlett objected to but Rhett had allowed based on the willful child's nagging.

"You let her do whatever she wants," she had murmured. Which had been true enough.

"And I will continue to do so," he had answered. "I have cleared it with her specialists. She is doing well and she has had so little fun in her life."

She had a picture of Bonnie on a pony, maybe a few months before her death. She looked so happy.

They would never know if that last pony ride, which had ended in a torrential downpour, had contributed to the fatal pneumonia which had claimed her young life within the week. Scarlett knew Rhett blamed himself bitterly, and she had done or said nothing to assuage his guilt, too wild with grief herself to care about anything else than deflecting her pain.

Of the many regrets, that was one of the keenest. The most difficult to forgive.


	8. Chapter 8

_Thanks again for the reviews, they are much appreciated! This chapter gives some more back story, both to Scarlett's past and their relationship during the separation ... and introduces Suellen. My usual warning applies here as well: Mature-ish content, nothing graphic._

* * *

She awoke to the alarm after roughly three hours of sleep, hollow-eyed and fatigued. Rhett got up with her even though he wasn't working. He stepped into the shower with her, something that would have elicited shrieks of offended modesty in the past. He kissed her beneath a soft curtain of rain falling over them, having pushed several buttons to make the water fall from the shower ceiling instead of the shower head. Scarlett was both awed and frightened by this unrestrained sensuality that had somehow established itself between them. Every part of his body, of his movements, seemed imbued with significance. The glistening dark hair on his chest and his stomach. His brown hands that drew her body flush against his. The shadow of a beard on his cheeks and jaw that grazed her skin deliciously when he bit her lips.

He had carried her, still drenched, to the bed and continued to kiss her. "Rhett," she protested weakly, "I'm going to be late."

Famous last words.

He made her breakfast while she dressed, and she had coffee, cut up fruit and egg-on-toast in the breakfast nook.

"I could get used to this," she said, chewing her toast.

He gave her a mock leering look. "So could I."

Scarlett raised her eyebrows. "I meant the food."

"Of course," he grinned.

She rolled her eyes. "Rhett. Sometime we will have to talk about …."

"Yes." He acknowledged, not giving an inch. "Sometime we will."

Scarlett shook her head. "Dude, you're hopeless."

"Tsk tsk," he replied, but with revived mirth in his voice. "What a way to talk to your program director."

"You're not my program director now. The problem is that I don't quite know what you are." She paused as a novel thought hit her. "Perhaps you don't know either." She slid off her barstool and grabbed her lab coat and regarded him curiously for a moment. "I'm so used to thinking you have all the answers."

She sauntered up to him and kissed him good-bye, her provocative green eyes mocking both him and his reserve. She looked leggy and impossibly young with her dark hair in a ponytail, and there was a queer expression on his face as he watched her.

While she was weaving her way through the empty streets, she pondered on how things had gotten to this point. It had been seven months.

Seven months since Melly had died, seven months since he had told her that their marriage was a farce and he was leaving.

Was she the only deserted wife in the history of womankind who had had to google the word her husband used to explain why he left her?

He had become interim program director during their separation, and she was elected chief resident. Which in practice meant that they'd had to see each other almost daily. It had been …. awkward. And Rhett had made no particular effort to make it more comfortable for her, throwing in jabs about her "dear junior chief" whenever it was most inappropriate. She had told him before he left she loved him and not Ashley, so the purpose of these jabs were unclear to her. Perhaps he hadn't believed her. Perhaps it was a handy way to keep her at a distance. Perhaps he enjoyed making her uncomfortable.

She had to admit he had been good about remaining in the lives of Wade and Ella, making sure they had rooms in his townhouse and having them over at least every other weekend, usually more often. He had been courteous, but very distant with Scarlett at hand-off, and she had done her best to appear cool and collected in return. Helpful people that knew them both would tell her they had seen him with Belle Watling at a restaurant, and later with Anne Hampton at the theatre. She had feared he was, as they say, moving on. She told herself she didn't care.

A few days before he had kissed her in the supply room they had gotten trapped in an elevator together on their way to see a consult patient. It had only been roughly four minutes – hospital elevators do not stay stuck for long as a rule – but they had been alone. Staring at each other. And for no particular reason, the air between them had started to crackle with electricity. He had taken a step towards her and murmured softly, "Scarlett …" and then the elevator had started to move again.

She had been shaken, her newly-discovered love for the first time in the history of her marriage intertwining with raw lust. Which had been difficult enough to wrap her head around. She had experienced lust once before, but this combustible combination of heart and hormones was unprecedented, and disconcerting.

At the next chief supervision, his black eyes had stuck to her like Wade's cat fish to the wall of the aquarium, and Ashley, who was there at well, had taken one look at them and trained his eye on the marine oil painting on the wall for the rest of the hour. Rhett had held her back after Ashely had left, cupping her face for the briefest of moments, gently dragging his thumb over her lower lips. But he hadn't kissed her. He had seemed as if he would say something, but the seconds had ticked away and he never did. Finally he had stepped back to let her go. She had been frustrated, and angry.

Looking back now, she wondered, as most women do at a much younger age than Scarlett, about the significance of it all. What does sex mean, even the kind of sex they had been having over the last few days. What do past hurts mean. What do children mean. What, if anything, any of it meant for the future.

And like most of Eve's descendents, she decided it was all …...a big mess.

~~oo~~

She was on her fourth admission of the morning when her cell-phone pinged.

"WHERE THE HELL ARE U?" In all-caps. And with contractions.

Her sister Suellen.

"I'm at the hospital," Scarlett texted back. "Why"?

"AM AT UR HOUSE AND EVERTHING IS LOCKED."

Scarlett sighed. "I am working this Sunday", she texted back. Just like Suellen to just show up, despite the fact that she knew Scarlett's call schedule was erratic.

"THERE R 3 PACKAGES BY THE DOOR. WHERE HAVE U BEEN?"

Scarlett groaned. Suellen had probably left her husband Will again and come to Scarlett to hide. And now she would see the dismal chaos the house was in, and …she'd have some explaining to do about where she had been, and with whom.

"There's a spare key in the bird-house in the back yard," she texted. "You can let yourself in. Sorry it's a bit of a mess. Did you bring the kids?" She prayed for a no.

"KIDS R HERE WITH ME."

Great. It was enough to make a person believe in karma.

When she had been young and foolish, she had married a guy Suellen had been interested in, back in the day when Pa's farm was failing. Married him for money, if she was honest with herself. Suellen had never forgiven her, but had never shown any hesitation in exploiting any guilt she knew Scarlett felt to her future advantage. Dear old Dr. Kennedy. A neurologist from her home county in Georgia that she had been externing with in an attempt to build up her resume for medical school. He had died in a hit-and-run helping an old lady across the street. He'd been a good man in a lot of ways. She had treated him very poorly.

He'd been the one who introduced her to Rhett, whom he knew from a conference. Karma hitting back in more ways than one, you could say.

"Suellen's here," she texted Rhett. "At the house."

"Do you want me to take you down there when you are done?", he texted back.

The nice thing about Rhett was that he was a remarkably quick study.

And that he didn't do contractions.

"Yes, thanks."

Even if arriving in Rhett's car would open them up to all kinds of speculation, she still wasn't ready to think about tunnels on her own.

~~oo~~

The BMW took the Midtown tunnel in one dark rush. Scarlett kept her eyes closed until they reached daylight. Driving with Rhett was akin to flying in an airplane – he believed speed limits were for lesser folks with slower cars. It was supremely unfair that she regularly got more speeding tickets than he did. She suspected his friend Captain McBride at the local police force was somehow nefariously involved, but he'd denied it vehemently and told her it was just good luck. His accident record was flawless, she had to admit, and tried to remind herself every time her stomach lurched. Maybe tunnels weren't so bad after all.

They skimmed the interstate, arriving roughly forty-five minutes later at a very modern subdivision at the other side of the Peninsula– no trees over five feet, bright, all houses costing upwards of half a million. Scarlett had loved the clean-cut flair and the "creative mix of plastic and fake brick" (quote Rhett, unquote). He had laughed at her architectural taste and tried to convince her to buy a red brick house in a much older neighbourhood with high pine trees and established ivy that climbed up impossibly high walls. She thought the houses were old-fashioned and dull. She had gotten her way.

His car pulled up in the driveway behind Suellen's SUV. The grass needed cutting, but gardening had always been the one domestic skill Scarlett possessed that he did not jeer at, and the flowers were full bloom. He had called it the Irish in her.

"The garden looks nice, Scarlett," he said, getting out. "I see you've managed to get the pomagranate trees to bloom." They did look pretty, a small row of red polka dots by the fence.

She opened the garage door, hearing the faint noises of screaming children from inside the house. She sighed.

This was going to be fun.


	9. Chapter 9

_Thanks again for the reviews, I appreciate every one! The screech-owl poem is by Lady Mary Wortley Montague._

* * *

She was standing next to the goldfish pond she had had installed a few months ago, the early shadows of the evening gliding slowly over the smooth planes of her face. Ambitious summer crickets played an uneven symphony somewhere close by. There were noises of shrieking playful children in the house. Out here there was simply this, this strange noisy silence.

Seeing Suellen had been just as trying as she had expected. Suellen's blue eyes, so much like Pa's and Bonnie's in color, had briefly come alive with interest when she saw Rhett emerging after Scarlett from the garage door. She was a faded version of her older sister, her figure lost years ago to three pregnancies and never reclaimed, her girlish confidence fatally eroded by the sudden defection of her lover to her more captivating ainee. There was guilt to be found, here, as well, should one choose to look for it, and her vague sense of responsibility for this altered Suellen made Scarlett dislike being around her even more. She tried to tell herself it was not her fault her sister was unable to move past losing a boyfriend over ten years ago, that she should be happy with Will, who was after all a good, caring man who put up with her temper and frequent defections.

But somehow, the prick of guilt had remained. She tried not feel it often.

The house had looked even worse than when Scarlett had left it. Rhett had taken over making dinner out of the dismal supplies Scarlett had had in her pantry, and ended up serving pancakes with jelly and powdered sugar to the delight of the three children. He had told Scarlett to fetch a bottle of wine and relax with her sister, and she could hear him rummaging around the kitchen, most likely cleaning up. She was uncertain if he was following the dictates of his natural neatness or if he hoped, through activity, to keep the resident ghosts at bay – ghosts that were so familiar to her by now that they simply felt like additional inhabitants of the house.

She had talked to Suellen for almost an hour about the farm, about Will and his unreasonable demands, and tried to dodge questions about her current relationship with Rhett. Then her old flight-instinct had kicked in, and she took a stroll down the garden while her sister put the younger children to bed. Rhett was still busy in the kitchen.

After a few minutes, she heard the door to the screened porch open, then close. He came up behind her on the walk-way like a shadow and put a hand on her shoulder. "Scarlett. If you're coming back with me you may want to pack a few things."

Blood rushed to her head, drowning out the night-noises. "Come back with you? But I thought …."

"I can't stay in this house overnight, Scarlett." he said, so softly that she had to strain to hear him.

Tears stung her eyes. "I'm so sorry." She drew a deep breath, her thoughts flashing like street-lights, stop, wait, go. "I never meant what I said to you after she died. It wasn't your fault." She wondered if one could claim interest on long overdue apologies, and what the penalty would be. And if she would be willing to pay it.

"I knew you didn't mean it, Scarlett," he replied, gently. "however, you couldn't have blamed me anymore than I already blamed myself. "

"Riding made her happy."

"It may have, but I will always wonder if my indulgence cost her her life."

"She was very sick. Anything could have happened, and probably would have. I never really blamed you for what happened and I wanted you to know I'm sorry."

"I appreciate it." And the night settled around them like a blanket, hiding her tears.

Determinedly, she dragged her mind from their grief to the other piece of information he had given her. "You said if I'm coming back with you, to pack."

He looked at her levelly. "Yes."

"Do you want me to come? Stay with you for longer, I mean?"

She saw him smirk, slightly, in the light of the torches by the pond. "If I did not want you to come I wouldn't have made the offer. Regardless of what you may think I am not in the habit of inviting women that I have no desire to see there."

"Rhett," she said, with mounting impatience. "That isn't really what I meant." And her eyes narrowed at the thought of other women, with Rhett. At his house?

He turned, looking over the dark expanse of the grass into the silent trees behind it. "I'm not sure what you want me to say, Scarlett. We've had …..four really good days. And nights. We've also had almost a decade of really bad days and nights stacked against us. We've lost a child – we've lost two children if you count the miscarriage. And we've both said and done our share of awful things to each other. We should take things slowly and see where we are."

She shook her head obstinately. "Rhett, I don't know about you, but in my book what we've been doing for the last four days doesn't exactly fall under "taking things slowly."

He had the good grace to laugh. "Point well taken." He came up to her and kissed her, briefly, and firmly. "I have no problem admitting part of the reason I want you back in my house is to satisfy all my baser desires."

"It figures," she said, with a flash. "So 'taking things slowly' means a guy gets to have his way with me whenever he wants, but gets to hold off on making any real commitment. It's been a while since I've done this Rhett, so please wait while I write it down. I may need to refer to it later."

His eyes held hers with a speculating look. "I believe you told me I was not the only one deriving pleasure from our current …..state."

"No," she said, painfully. "but that's just it Rhett. You know I'm in love with you. Every day that we continue I set myself up for getting hurt even worse should you decide it's not worth it after all. I don't know how you feel about me. I don't know what any of this really means to you because you never tell me." She hid her face in the shadows. "If it's just good sex you can probably find tons of other people to have good sex with."

He gave a short, barking laugh. It was becoming too dark to read his expression, and at any rate she would not have seen the indecision in his eyes, and then the resolve. "Scarlett, in view of our rather …daunting marital history do you really think I'd be here, with you, if all I was after was sex?"

"I don't know," she said, lifting her chin. "Maybe I am just that good in bed now."

He grinned. "Ever fishing for a compliment. I'm glad some things never change." He walked up to her, and lifted her chin with two fingers. "I'm not in a place were I can make promises of deathless love and happy endings. However, I do want to see if there is enough left of what was good in our marriage …to build something new between us. Now that it really is just the two of us." He smiled, softly. "And as the much more experienced of the two of us you'll have to take my word for it that we couldn't have that kind of sex with just anyone."

She laughed then, her eyes gleaming flirtatiously in the torchlight. "Why do I get the distinct impression I'm being played, Mr. Butler?"

A screech howl called suddenly, the sound so close to them that they both looked up. Whoooo-hooo, it called. Whooo-hooo.

Rhett murmered softly, "The screech-owl, with ill-boding cry/ Portends strange things, old women say/ Stops every fool that passes by, / And frights the school-boy from his play."

"What?" she scowled, as usual lost to his meaning.

The owl suddenly stopped, the absence of noise its own kind of silence.

He smiled. "Some cultures believe the cry of the screech owl may portend strange and unpleasant events."

"Rhett, you know the weirdest stuff," she replied, shaking her head.

"I went through a folk lore and mythology phase as a kid. Somewhere after my pirate phase and before my all-things-boats phase," he laughed. "I hope the screech-owl does not bode any more ill things for us, Scarlett."

"Rank superstition," she scoffed. "The unpleasant event that will happen is that Suellen and her kids will trash the house completely if I leave them here by themselves, and I don't need a screech owl to tell me that." She took a deep breath, "I'll go pack."

He nodded. She gave him a guarded smile, uneasiness warring in her chest with her hallmark heedless optimism. Then she grinned more fully. "I can't wait tell Suellen the good news."

His gaze followed her as she left to go back in. And the owl, hidden behind the leaves of the weeping willow, watched her lithe form disappear down the garden path with similar, predatory eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

Thank you for the reviews, as always much appreciated! Reader, Wade and Ella are in Ireland with Pa for the summer. I think they come back when school starts.

Hat tip to the venerable Dorothy Sayers and the opening chapters of _Busman's Honeymoon_ – imitation, flattery, and all that.

And yes, some owls work fast. :)

* * *

_Mrs. Julia Ashley, to Mrs. Eleanor Butler, via email._

My dearest Nora,

I hope this missive finds you in good health and spirits. My grandson, Jack, has presented me with a new laptop for my birthday, so I can now write outside on the porch by the water when the weather is fine, which amuses me greatly. Isn't it exciting how our generation gets to have new experiences almost every day? I heart technology, and large fonts.

The news is out all over town that your charming son Dr. Rhett has reconciled with his wife; they were seen at Francesco's last Thursday and were obviously on excellent terms. My nephew Tommy at City General told me their ICU nurses have had an ongoing "betting pool" as to when they would officially reconcile. I tell Tommy not to be so juvenile, but you can't really blame people for their interest; they are a very attractive couple, and there is something romantic about them, even before all the tragedy they have had to endure.

I always did think Jerry was mistaken for trying so hard to set Rhett up with Anne, although you can't tell Jerry anything when he's made up his mind, and at any rate it's all for the best now.

Frankly, I admit I have always had a soft spot for Scarlett. Seeing her fall asleep so soundly during Patterson's production of _Don Giovanni_ last year remains one of the highlights of the entire season, and pulling off that shoulder-free green concoction she wore to the Vernissage took a lot of spunk. I swear Milton lost his glass eye when he saw her walk in! She is a feisty little thing, isn't she, and keeps Rhett on his toes, which has been good for him. I intend to have them over for dinner very soon, if only to annoy Catherine, who has been as mad as a hornet ever since Sally broke the news to her. I've always suspected Catherine had some interest in Rhett herself, if you can believe it. But one must not be uncharitable, or so I try to tell myself, and Catherine has some excellent qualities, even if they currently escape me.

Which reminds me, Sally is to be married in October, in Vegas of all places, and we hope to see you all for the ceremony if you fancy braving the crowds. Invitations are going out shortly.

Please give my best regards to the lovely Rosemary, and I remain, despite my rambling pen,

Your faithful friend,

Julia

* * *

_Mrs. Eleanor Butler to Dr. Rhett Bulter, via text:_

Rhett, my friend Julia tells me the sparrows at the Beach are piping from the rooftops that you've reconciled with Scarlett, and as usual the sparrows know much more than your long-suffering mother. I tried calling the house, but only got her sister who is apparently acting as a house-sitter? Give me a buzz when you have a chance. xoxo

* * *

_Rosemary Butler to Rhett Butler, via text:_

"Bro – spill. :) "

* * *

Scarlett had been at the townhouse for about three days before she realized that their secret reconciliation had ceased to be ….. secret. Rhett had come back into the kitchen after a phone call, saying he had received an invitation to dine with Mrs. Julia Ashley and to "bring dear Scarlett too, if she had time with all her work at the hospital!"

He had laughed, apparently thinking it was all a great joke, but she had scowled. She'd known that the cocoon they had lived in for the past week would not remain intact indefinitely, but she had hoped for a little more time.

And Mrs. Julia Ashley wasn't the worst of the old bats that would be parading her through their parlors until they had seen with their own eyes of just how things stood between her and Rhett, she thought grimly to herself.

The only positive aspect was that it was bound to have gotten back to Anne Hampton as well. She detested the sound of Anne.

Any woman who was not beneath professing to love the Opera would obviously stop at nothing.

They had gone to the dinner, pulling up in front of the well-kept brownstone at half past six. Scarlett wore a very simple off-the-rack black Calvin Klein dress, which flattered her figure outrageously, her black hair falling in simple waves over her shoulders. At the very least, she smiled, no other woman would outshine her tonight.

Mrs. Ashley, tastefully clad in a classic grey two-piece, had met them at the door with a plate full of hors d'oeuvres under a huge oil painting of herself and her deceased husband.

"Scarlett!" she purred. "It's been much too long."

That, Scarlett thought bitterly, depended _entirely_ on your point of view. She took some cheese-with-grapes on toothpicks. She looked around the room, searching for someone to stab.

She graciously accepted the compliments on her dress, and managed to make polite chit-chat throughout a formal dinner where she knew every expression and every tone of voice was being scrutinized. She stopped at the bar and had the hired caterer pour her white wine. She was leery of the beige carpets. Dangerous, to serve red wine here. Too much money, no common sense.

Mrs. Ashley was a retired psychiatrist and had been a great friend and mentor of Melly's, so speaking about Melly had been a relatively safe topic. After dinner, they were shown around the house to "see what we've been doing with the old place." Scarlett dutifully admired the new patio and a few new paintings she knew nothing about ("interesting colors!", she remarked several times over) and spoke to people she barely remembered. She heard more than she cared to know about Mrs. Ashley's son, who was apparently involved in a start-up in California and, she was told, "has refused to go to medical school or law school like regular people!"

"Kids will be kids," Mrs. Ashley said brightly.

Scarlett had pulled a small moue that she hoped looked sympathetic. Some people had all the bad luck with their offspring.

Rhett had behaved beautifully, showing just the proper amount of deference, and touching her no more and no less than was proper for a husband of long standing attending a party with his wife. But, she thought, the old bats would measure any minute tension in her face and, by the end of the evening, would be able to assign a percentage chance down to the third decimal point that one of their nieces or grand-daughters would yet succeed in snagging the charming Dr. Butler.

When they finally arrived at home, she swung herself on one of the barstools and poured herself a glass of brandy, which she then took to the leather couch in the living room.

Which is where she found the earring.

* * *

_Telephone conversation between Rosemary Butler and Dr. Rhett Butler, at about 11 pm that same night._

**Rosemary** (bubbly): "Bro! Can you talk? I want to hear all about Scarlett! When, where, why, and what happened! I am so excited!"

**Rhett:** "To tell you the truth, she just ran out on me."

**Rosemary**: "Huh?"

**Rhett:** "She threw an earring at me and left."

**Rosemary**: "She threw an earring at you?"

**Rhett:** (clarifying) "One that she found in the couch."

**Rosemary:** "Uh oh." (Pregnant pause). "Not _her_ earring, I presume."

**Rhett:** "No."

**Rosemary**: "Dude, you really have a way with women."

**Rhett:** "So I've been told."

**Rosemary:** "Where'd she go?"

**Rhett** (drawn-out drawl): "To the hospital, I would assume."

**Rosemary:** "And where are you?"

**Rhett:** "At the house."

**Rosemary:** (eyeroll) "When did she leave?"

**Rhett:** "About half an hour ago."

**Rosemary:** "Go after her, stupid."

**Rhett:** (reluctantly) "I probably should."

**Rosemary:** "Good luck. Keep me posted! Oh, and if you find her, and ...you know, text me any time!"

**Rhett:** "Good night, Rosemary."


	11. Chapter 11

_Thank you again for the reviews, you guys are wonderful as usual. This chapter brings a time-line deviation – I am placing Rhett's break-down with Melanie after Bonnie's death and not after the miscarriage. I couldn't resist the chance to get Rhett into therapy. He needs it._

_Intriguing, what sort of a relationship a modern Rhett might have had with a modern Melanie. Catnip for the likes of me._

* * *

The silver-haired man scrolled down his computer screen one last time. Re-reading his notes before the beginning of a therapy session was a habit cultivated by long years of training, but it was unnecessary. His memory was still sharp. He was able to recall even the most insignificant details of the cases which interested him - and almost every person he had ever treated interested him.

The office was simply, but expensively furnished. A serene atmosphere was important for therapeutic rapport, as was the elegant suit he wore and the gold-rimmed glasses he used for reading small print. They were the outward cues of success and competence that inspired confidence in his skills. He had a lined, thin, aristocratic face with a touch of monkish austerity, but utterly free of judgment. The walls of his office had heard many things of human sorrows and delights over the years, and so had he. But the years had not jaded him, and he looked forward to his day's work each morning when he turned his key in his door.

He was not an old man, but he was able to appear to be old if necessary. He glanced at the clock on the wall, set so both he and his patients could see it. It was time. He drew a deep breath, and like a stage actor summoned up the appropriate persona for this particular encounter, calm and paternal.

He nodded to Doris, his secretary, seated behind an antique walnut desk in the lobby, and stepped outside into the waiting room.

The patient was already there, punctual as usual. "Dr. Butler," he called softly.

He never raised his voice.

The other man, younger, tall and dark-haired, nodded his head in greeting. He was powerfully built, but moved with the silent grace of a dancer. He was not as tense as he had been many months ago when he had first come into the practice, but he was still far from comfortable.

"Dr. Wilkes sent me," he had said, when he first arrived.

The other man had nodded. Dr. Melanie Wilkes had called ahead, telling him she was referring him a new patient. A difficult case, she had said. A colleague, who needed a private therapist, and wanted no insurance record. A very intelligent man, who had had a tragic loss, the death of his daughter.

He had made room in his full schedule to accommodate him. His time was not cheap, but he rarely had empty slots. He treated captains of industry, politicians, lawyers, doctors and a good portion of pro bono cases; and regularly had to turn away many more referrals than he could accept. But he had immediately picked up on the tension vibrating in Melanie's voice, and he had been intrigued.

Nothing ever unsettled Dr. Melanie Wilkes. But she _had_ been unsettled.

And he would find out why.

~~oo~~

The first couple of months of therapy had been relatively straight-forward grief processing, as he would do with any parent that that lost a child. There were complicating factors here, a genetic illness and the matter of the pony ride, which the father had felt had caused the child's death – but sorrow and guilt were in and of themselves not unusual in orphaned parents. There was more here.

And he would find it.

He had worked slowly, allowing the other man to proceed at his own pace, intuiting correctly that to hurry him would be to lose him. This patient deflected beautifully, his inner self defended by rows of thorns not unlike those that covered magic castles in fairy tales. As a professional, he admired creative defenses as an art-critic would admire a good imitation, but as a human being he occasionally wondered how many people in Dr. Butler's life had gotten caught in these hedges - and what it had cost them.

He glanced at the leather armchairs in the room. He had placed them strategically, purposefully, letting each person choose their own distance from him during a session.

Some would sit on the same chair every time. Others would move: closer, then farther away, depending on the level of intimacy they were comfortable with as they wove in and out of the phases of their lives in his presence. He had had people sit on the other side of the room. Others pulled their chair so close to him that they almost touched his knee. One had even sat at his desk.

Problems with authority, of course.

This particular patient never sat. He usually stood by the window, staring outside, for the entire forty-five minutes. Today was no different.

He allowed him to settle in. The city noises were dimmed behind the heavy curtains. They were close enough to the City Hospital that the occasional ambulance noise would jar the silence.

"You seem tense, Dr. Butler," he offered after a while. "I wouldn't normally comment on it, because I am aware that you are still not entirely comfortable with the concept of therapy. However, if I may say something as a professional who has been reading body language even before you were born - you seem more than usually preoccupied today."

He waited, and then added gently, "Perhaps we could talk about it."

Rhett turned away from the window, and looked at him, his hands in his pockets. But he said nothing.

The older man allowed the pause to draw out indefinitely. It had been long ago that he had learned not to touch uncomfortable silences.

"My wife," Rhett said, finally.

The older man had also learned when not to interrupt. He waited, filling his mind with random lines of prose, so the waiting would not show in his face.

Finally Rhett continued. "We had been separated for over six months, as you know." He deflected again. "Did I ever tell you I met her when she was casting vases about at a party?"

The other man allowed himself a gentle smile. "A tempestuous nature, apparently."

Rhett raised his eyebrows, comfortable on this ground of ironic repartee. "Indeed."

But it had been but a momentary reprieve, a feint, as they say in fencing, and Rhett should have seen it - but he did not. "Perhaps," the older man said, "this is one of those instances that can only be understood by unraveling the tapestry ….. back to the innermost thread."

Another false lead, a diversion before the actual strike. Again he remained unaware.

Rhett had nodded, expecting to be asked when he had first met Scarlett. Expected to describe their courtship, his proposal, and the gradual downward slope of their relationship. Unpleasant, certainly, but well-rehearsed in his mind.

Instead, the other man asked him an entirely different question. One he was not prepared to answer.

"Tell me why you have come here."

Which had indeed been the crux of the matter.

~~oo~~

He had begun to drink mindlessly after Bonnie's death. Silently, and alone. At home, with bottle after bottle of whiskey. Allowing the darkness to sink into him, drowning out her face. He knew it was only a matter of time before he would be drinking so much and so late that it would affect his work and he would made a costly, perhaps a life-altering mistake. Before he caused damage to someone else's Bonnie.

He couldn't bring himself to care.

Melanie had seen it, and with her usual determination had decided to do something about it. She had cornered him one evening as he was about to go off his shift, and drawn him into an empty room and locked the door. Something about her, her gentleness, broke him. He had wept for two hours with his head on her lap. Confessing most of his secrets.

He had guarded just one, the one that would affect her, and for that he would always be grateful.

She had held him.

When he was calm, she had dried his face and helped him stand up. He had stared down at her, overcome with the magnitude of his breakdown, and had suddenly pulled her into his arms. He had almost kissed her. He had felt her go limp for an eighth of a millisecond before she recovered herself, making her entire body as stiff as a rail, pushing him away. He had stared at her for a moment, wondering if he could overcome that resistance, if …..then,with mechanical precision, he watched her body turn slightly, a half-movement to the side, _as she had been trained to do in the company of those whom insanity had driven to violence, to make herself less of a target._

Even that might not have been enough to contain him in his half-crazed state, had it not been for those eyes. Fearless, vulnerable eyes, utterly untouched by evil. Their expression sliced through his agony like a hot knife through butter. He had stepped back, horrified by what he had almost done.

And he had seen, in her sweet, heart-shaped face, both understanding and forgiveness.

~~oo~~

Again, the other man let the silence stretch through the room until it snapped.

"Perhaps we can understand the situation together," he said.

Rhett made a strange sound, between a sigh and a groan. "Be my guest."

"I personally do not find your reaction incomprehensible at all," the older man began. It was important to normalize initially, for it was often the case, that those with dark emotions thought themselves uniquely cursed, beyond the reach of help. That served no one. "You may have felt the need to regain control, after having shown weakness in front of a woman. Weakness, I know, is not something you have ever been comfortable with. Kissing her, eliciting a response from her, would have ….. equaled the playing field."

Rhett said nothing. The other man continued, "And then, there is the …..revenge you could have had. By kissing the wife of the man you knew your own wife had been infatuated with for the better part of a decade." Reminding him of the culpability of others would also serve to draw some venom from the wound - and perhaps begin the process of healing.

He paused, briefly. "And then, there is the ….simple distraction …. it could have offered you from the pain you were experiencing." That part was simple, and not even particularly dark, so he could end with it.

And then he smiled - a strange, almost ecclesiastical benediction. "You did stop yourself before you actually harmed her."

Rhett smiled wearily and dragged his large hand through his black hair. "I was certain she would avoid me after that night - but she didn't. In fact she sought me out the very next day and told me that she knew of a therapist that might be able to help me deal with my grief." He smiled, ruefully. "She said ….that you were …'as intelligent as me'. She was probably being kind."

The other man smiled. "Not at all. But I am ….older."

Rhett walked away from the window and sat down on one of the chairs. " She was good at her job, probably one of the most intuitive people I have ever seen. She used everything she had against me, my pride and my vanity, and my guilt, because she knew I would never have gone otherwise, and because she felt it would be helpful. I did promise. I would have promised her anything - after how I had repaid her kindness. She died not long after that. I felt honor-bound to keep my word." He stopped, and exhaled. "So here I am."

"Here you are," the other man nodded. "Melanie Wilkes was an impressive young woman." He smiled with genuine sadness. She had been a good friend, a truly remarkable person. And Rhett was sitting down, and apparently listening. Perhaps they could do some real work now, finally. It would have been what she wanted.

"Tell me what happened with Scarlett."

* * *

_"And while the black night nothing saw,_

_And till the cold morn came at last,_

_That old bed held the room in awe_

_With tales of its experience vast._

_It thrilled the gloom: it told such tales_

_Of human sorrow and delights,_

_Of fever moans and infant wails,_

_Of births and deaths and bridal nights."_

**-James Thomson, "In the Room"**


	12. Chapter 12

He had walked through the long quiet corridors of the hospital and up several elevators to the eighth floor, part of which was occupied by the resident call rooms. He pushed in the four-digit code, and entered when the lights flashed green. Finding Scarlett might prove to be a difficult undertaking.

She had not answered his texts. Or his pages. And he had not expected her to. In fact, once her combustible temper flared up it could take days for her to settle down, if past experience was anything to go by.

In the middle of the room was a large semi-circle filled with computer screens. Only one person was seated there, and after a moment he recognized Dr. Jennifer Coles, the Medicine Chief. She was a stout, sensible young woman with a gift for keeping her eyes on her own paper.

She lifted tired hazel eyes from her screen. "May I help you?" It was unusual to have an attending in here. If she regaled the next intern that walked in with the tale he was about to tell her he could hardly blame her.

"I'm looking for Scarlett," he said. "I'm not sure if she has her phone on her, and she's not answering her pager."

If she was surprised she gave no outward sign. "She was in here earlier. She asked if we had any rooms, and I gave her one that's currently empty. But she left again."

Internal Medicine controlled a whole flight of rooms due to the fluctuating number of medical students that rotated with them, while the two Neurology rooms were already taken up by the night shift.

"Any idea where she might have gone?"

She looked at him, her face remaining impassive. Whatever thoughts she may have had about the Butler family drama she was keeping admirably to herself. "She said she was going out and would be back later tonight." She hesitated before continuing, probably imagining Scarlett's wrath if she found out who had given her away.

"There's a small place in Ghent that you might want to try. Called Charley's. Quiet, lots of students. Many of us go there after shifts if we don't want to be bothered with cooking. They're open late and they make good sandwiches."

He smiled with genuine gratitude, the kind of smile that made even sensible young women glow in spite of themselves. "Thank you."

~~oo~~

Scarlett walked slowly from the hospital in the direction of the Ghent district. It was a warm night, the clean sea air warring with the stifling inland humidity, neither quite emerging victorious. A night to spend in air-conditioned rooms or cool bars or on a boat.

The small bar was quiet after midnight. She slid onto one of the stools.

There was a new redheaded barkeeper, about her age. He wore a Redskins t-shirt and a general air of boyishness. She grimaced to herself. After being married to Rhett, any man under the age of forty appeared immature. He'd conditioned her like one of Dr. Pavlov's dogs.

But she was a grownup now. She tossed her black hair with renewed resolve.

The young man's gaze took in her beauty, the shape-hugging black dress and the cascading dark tresses slightly curling from the humidity. "What are you having?"

She ordered a whiskey on the rocks, not in the mood for anything complicated.

The boy served her drink and seemed in the mood to linger. "Do you come here often?" An inane way to chat her up, but what the heck. He meant well, and he might be able to take her mind of what had just happened back at the house.

She didn't want to think about it anymore.

"Sometimes. After shifts."

"You work at the hospital?"

She nodded. She was aware of the incongruous picture she made. God knew what the kid was thinking.

Not that it mattered.

"I'm Brent, by the way," he said.

She started out of her reverie. "Brent?"

At her incredulous expression, he laughed. "Yeah. Weird name right."

"No …it's just. …..I had a friend named Brent once."

He could tell from her tone that this was not a happy story. "What happened?" His expression of friendly concern lulled her in. Maybe he was not so ill-suited for this job as she had previously thought.

"He died in Iraq." Along with many other friends.

"Oh." He seemed taken aback. "I'm very sorry." The kid had a sheltered look about him. Mommy and Daddy probably doted on him, and no one he cared for had ever died. Some people just lucked out that way.

"Yeah." She shrugged it off. "I was in Iraq myself."

"You were?" he asked, with the polite interest of a civilian. "Where?"

"Balad Air Base," she said, knowing this would tell him nothing. "I was a medic for a while, before I went to medical school." She tried to shake the memory but somehow the memory served as a welcome distraction from the other thing she didn't want to think about, her up-to-no-good husband for example. Sort of like trading a toothache for a migraine. It at least had the benefit of being different.

"Really." He stared at the girl before him, unable to reconcile the lovely vision before him with her story. "You must have been ….very young."

"I was 19 when I joined. After the death of my first husband." As much as she tried to avoid it, the sounds were coming back to her with increasing ferocity. The cries of the wounded. The blood. The helplessness and the fury when they lost yet another young patient before his life had really begun. The twack twack twack of the aeromedical evacuation helicopters relentlessly bringing in more of the wounded. The air-strikes, mortar rounds, the incoming rockets. The wail of the sirens. The wind and the sand. The Iraqi guard who had had a mental breakdown and whom she had shot when he had attacked her and her friend on the base. Taking the other guard's gun, no less, when the kid had frozen.

Until her dying day, she would see the look in the man's eyes just before she pulled the trigger.

She and the military had parted amicably not long afterwards, having remorselessly turned her heroics into her ticket home.

"What made you go?"

With an effort, she brought her thoughts back to the present. "After 9/11 I felt called to join." He looked at her with awe, and admiration, which was the reaction she had wanted to provoke, because it usually put an end to this line of questioning. It was a lie, of course. The truth would have been, "I wanted to get away from a farm in Georgia. And the constraints of motherhood to a toddler."

But one couldn't say these things. Not around nice people. Not here.

The young man tried to steer the conversation back to safer ground, not knowing that he was instead stepping on more quicksand. "You married again?"

"Twice. My second husband died in a hit-and-run." She added. "And my mother died."

The boy was clearly regretting ever speaking to her. "I am very sorry."

She shrugged. "It was a long time ago."

"That must have been so hard."

Had it been hard? She still remembered the devastation of hearing about her mother's death. Her mother had been depressed for years and finally stopped taking care of herself until she died of the complications of viral pneumonia. At the eulogy, the pastor had called depression an endless tunnel without light. Her mother had put on a good show for many years though, and Scarlett retrospectively admired her tenacity even if she no longer wanted to be like her.

"It's over now," she shrugged.

The boy smiled, desperately trying to find a lighter topic. He glanced at her rings. "And now you're married again."

"Separated." She was beginning to sound like rotten luck, even to herself.

"Sorry."

The poor boy.

Scarlett didn't blame him when he took the next available pretext to get away. She took her drink and moved to one of the tables in the back.

Immediately, one of the few remaining men in the room moved as well.

~~oo~~

He had left the BMW in a no-parking zone right in front of the small bar. He stood by the door for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness.

He spotted her almost immediately. She was tucked away in a corner table, her back to him. Thankfully, she was alone. Perhaps it was not surprising after all, as her whole body radiated hostility.

He walked through the room to her table, and now he felt eyes on him, slightly pitying. So they had tried to make overtures, and had been rebuffed. Soundly, if he knew anything about Scarlett.

"Scarlett."

She didn't turn her head. "Go away."

He slid in one of the chairs opposite hers. She gave him an oddly resigned look. "How did you find me?"

"I had a hunch you might be here," he replied evenly.

Her quick temper flared. "Jennifer had no right…." She quickly calculated the amount she owed in her head, threw some cash on the table and started walking towards the door. The warm air hit her like a physical blow when she stepped outside.

He caught up to her after a few paces. "Scarlett," he said harshly. "This can't work if we keep running away from each other."

"You would know," she jeered, never breaking her stride. "Running was all you ever did." She crossed the street and turned towards the Waterfront.

He didn't deny it.

She walked, and walked until she reached the balustrade by the Bay and she could walk no more. Several of the monstrous Naval Air Plane Carriers gleamed dully in the distance, and she closed her eyes.

"Scarlett."

Her head whipped around to face him, her fury slowly gaining steam. "That morning at breakfast, when you asked me all those questions. Before we went on the boat. What was it you needed to know, Rhett?"

He dragged his hand through his hair. "I had to know you were not still hung up on the honorable Dr. Wilkes - or anyone else - before …. opening myself up to the idea of a reconciliation."

"Yet you told me nothing about yourself or who you'd been with while we were separated. Or before," she said, her green eyes now barely slits.

"Before?" he said, slowly. "I hardly thought you'd cared who I was with, before I left you."

"You know that isn't true," she replied heatedly. "I've always wanted to know ….were there …other women ….while we were still married? In Minneapolis, maybe?"

There was nothing he could tell her except the truth. "Yes."

She winced, but affected an air of suave unconcern. "Anyone you cared about?"

He looked at her, levelly. "I didn't really care about anything except Bonnie's health those days."

"Were they …."

"Prostitutes?" He grinned mirthlessly. "No. I haven't sunk quite that low."

"Ah," she said, but not really understanding. "If they weren't prostitutes and they weren't girl-friends then why…."

He didn't answer, and she blushed to the roots of her hair from shame and indignation. "So those things we did ….you've ….." She found she couldn't go on.

The gulf of years and experience between them suddenly loomed like a canyon too wide to bridge. "Scarlett. I know it's not a world you lived in but sometimes a man and a woman can agree to give each other …..physical comfort ….without it being love or great passion, or even what you would call a relationship."

"I know that," she said, haughtily, although she didn't. "I don't live under a rock. I just never thought…."

"What did you think would happen, after you decided we would sleep in separate rooms?" He sounded genuinely curious, his large hands on the balustrade, his eyes on the horizon.

"I'm not sure I was thinking anything," she answered truthfully. "I was sorry the minute it happened but I didn't know how to undo it." She had been sorry. She had missed him, and everything had changed after that night. And it had been no one's fault but her own.

She turned to more solid ground. "And after we separated? What about Belle Watling?"

He sighed. "Believe it or not, Belle is a friend. She's going through a difficult divorce and we helped each other. Yes, we slept together a few times but we both decided we are much better suited as friends. "

"How wonderful for you, to have such good friends," she smirked, and, without missing a beat, dove for the kill. "Whose earring was it?"

He said nothing for a whole minute. "I suspect it was Anne's".

"So you had her over …..and….."

"I didn't sleep with her, Scarlett."

She lifted dark green eyes to look at him, full of disbelief.

"I didn't," he reiterated. "I had her over after the Opera and I kissed her on the sofa – which is probably where she lost the earring."

Scarlett's ivory skin paled with indignation. "I don't want to hear about…."

"Scarlett, wait." His arm caught ahold of her as she tried to turn away. She unsuccessfully tried to free her wrist from his grip and settled for glaring impotently at him instead.

"I sent her home."

"Why?"

"Because she reminded me of you. Just a little bit, but not enough."

"Rrrrrright." She might not live in that world he was talking about earlier …the world were one slept with strangers and shrugged it off the next morning with an elegant wave of the hand and thought nothing more of it ….but she wasn't born yesterday either. "You said you don't give a damn."

He lifted her chin with some force when she tried to avert her eyes again, the sea air playing with her hair like so many fingers. "I meant it when I said it. I was numb. But after I left and had some time to… reflect… I started to miss you. It was agonizing seeing you every day and wondering if this was the day Dr. Wilkes would get lucky."

He paused. "I told myself that it would go away, as long as I moved forward and never let you guess I had doubts. I tried distracting myself. I tried dating. But it just got worse. Not too long afterwards I saw you in the elevator and I almost kissed you there and then."

Scarlett scowled.

"I almost gave in that day in the office, but I was able to stop myself. Barely."

"Then when I saw you in the supply room I knew my game was lost." He was looking at her with a strange mixture of melancholy and tenderness. "I love you Scarlett. I always have, since the day I saw you at Dr. Wilkes' party and wondered if you were legal yet."

"I wasn't." Not that not knowing had stopped him from making all kinds of indecent insinuations, the no-good…

"I know that now, and believe it or not I am sorry for upsetting you." He cupped her face with his hand and his dark eyes looked into her defiant green ones. "Will you come home with me, Scarlett?"

* * *

_I tried, but …. It doesn't work without a war experience which made Scarlett who she is. I'm not entirely happy with the way this chapter flows and I'm not sure if the time-line makes sense to anyone but I needed this to bridge to the next section. At least it's sort of a longish chapter, at least for me. As always, all your reviews are much appreciated. I love that there are so many creative writers and amazing stories in this fandom!_


	13. Chapter 13

_Thank you for the kind reviews – it's always a joy to hear what someone who has read the story thinks. It means a lot. I'm posting this now without re-editing because someone needs to be posting ….. has the Olympics eaten all the wonderful writers on this site? Write! Even we sports agnostics need entertainment. :-)_

_As usual: Mature-ish content warning, nothing too graphic._

* * *

She had looked at him, her expression softening considerably at his words. Never had he so warmly and openly confessed his love. Not during their courtship. Certainly not during their tumultuous marriage. How different things might have been, had he been more forthcoming from the outset.

She took an instinctive step in his direction, towards the warmth in his voice, towards that love.

Then she frowned, unwilling to give in so quickly or so easily.

"How do I know you won't be running off …to other women… every time we argue?" As he had always run, apparently. To those nameless, faceless women, as well as to the ones who had both names and faces in her mind. It had to end, forever, if they were to have a chance.

He sighed. "Scarlett, I was never with anyone but you while you and I were still engaged in anything remotely resembling a relationship. I admit that changed after you downgraded us to housemate status, but even then one word from you, one hint that you were still interested in working on our marriage would have been enough - at least until I convinced myself that there was truly nothing left of our marriage and I needed to get away for my own sanity."

He paused, his eyes never leaving her face, which remained cautious and guarded.

"If the last week proves anything, it's that I was spectacularly wrong last September thinking we were done. And spectacularly right when I married you, knowing we could be incredibly, uniquely happy if we just found ourselves on the same page for a minute or three."

His hand stretched out and played with her windblown hair. The magnetism his black eyes exuded was almost irresistible, but she had to keep herself from drowning. From losing herself in him before certain parameters had been established.

"Perhaps you were right, that night in the garden," she murmured. "Perhaps we should, you know … take things slowly. Really talk. Get to know each other again."

He exhaled, as if he had been holding his breath.

"We can take whatever time we need. I do want to make this work, Scarlett. I want us to have a real future, not just a rehashing of our old mistakes."

His phone pinged a few notes from Schubert's _Trout Quintet_. He briefly held up the screen. "Rosemary," he smiled, showing the text to Scarlett.

_Have u found her? _

"Have I?" he asked, softly. The humidity had finally receded before the night, and a salty breeze was arriving inland from the sea.

"Yes,' she replied, her voice barely a whisper above the wind over the Bay. "It seems like you have."

The happiness in his eyes was overpowering, and she had to look away. He stretched out his arm, and pulled her against his hard frame.

It felt like coming home.

And they kissed under the glow of the streetlight, briefly presenting a charming tableaux of human love and happiness against the silhouettes of the vast airplane carriers in the distance.

~~oo~~

Three days later she parked her green Honda in front of the townhouse by the Waterfront. She jumped out of the car, clutching a wine bottle in her left hand that she had won at the annual resident retreat. She had also spent two days at the house with Suellen and her children – enough to drive a saint to distraction. And she had missed Rhett. Oh, how she had missed Rhett.

She rang the doorbell, her heart beating a disconcerting staccato rhythm. He opened the door himself rather than just buzzing her in, taking in her white v-neck t-shirt, her shape-hugging blue jeans and her free-flowing black hair, and his eyes darkened. Then he laughed suddenly, noting the slight sunburn over the exposed area of her normally ivory-white skin.

"How was the retreat? Hot, I assume, by the looks of you."

She grinned. "I won the mini-golf competition," She held up the wine bottle.

"You're the chief. You should have let someone else win," he teased.

"What, and give up the chance to win such fine wine?" she replied, smirking at the idea of just handing over victory to someone else, chief or no chief. "This cost at least five dollars at Trader Joe's."

A corner of his mouth went up. "As long as you don't make me drink it." He took the wine out of her hands, setting it on the small side table in the entrance.

She was unable to stop smiling at him. How handsome he looked in his grey trousers and his white shirt.

She stepped inside, and without warning found herself pushed against the wall, his hands lifting her and hitching her legs around his waist. He steadied her back against the wall and slanted his mouth over hers, his free hand roaming under her shirt and to her breasts. "Rhett, she said, breathlessly, when she had a chance. "I thought we were …aaahh…taking things ….mmmm ….slowly…..."

"I _am_ taking things slowly," he growled, between biting and nibbling at her lips. "I haven't kissed you in three whole days. And nights. That's slow enough. Much too… slow, if you ask me."

She tried to giggle, but didn't have enough air.

"I was about to go insane Scarlett," he whispered between kisses. "Stark raving mad. I haven't slept. I haven't done a single productive thing while you were gone. All I could think about is you and what I will do to you when I finally have my hands on you again."

She tried to remember her protests, but her treacherous mind seemed to have misplaced them. He carried her up the two stairs to the bedroom never relinquishing her lips. When he finally laid her on the bed she looked just as dazed as he. He pulled off her shirt and her jeans with practiced and economic movements, until she lay on his bed in nothing but lacy black panties and a matching bra. Seconds later, even they seemed to have melted away.

"Never leave me alone so long again, Scarlett," he growled before reclaiming her lips and pulling his body over hers.

And that was her last conscious memory.

~~oo~~

Rhett stood at his usual place by the window of the elegant office, staring out into the sun-light courtyard beyond. His contemplative gaze touched the circular stone benches, the grey flower-pots beside them spilling rivulets of dark-veined English ivy onto the ground. Several red-breasted robins pecked for insects between the red stones.

"The next few weeks were like something out of a dream," he said. "I don't think I let her out of my arms, or my bed, for longer than five minutes after she came over. We spent hours touching. Kissing. Making love. Staring into each other's eyes like besotted new lovers. And talking, as incredible as it seems. For the first time ever really. Talking about nothing, and about everything. Even about what went wrong in our marriage. About Bonnie. About our hopes and fears for the future. I shared things with her that I thought I would never share with another human being. She shared things with me that she hadn't ever told anyone. It was awe-inspiring, and terrible and utterly frightening. More than once I thought that I would run away, or that she would, or that it all would become too intense and one of us would break down. But we didn't."

He paused, and added softly. "And she was _there_ with me, the entire time. That's what kept me from running away, as I've always run in the past. She was _present_ in a way she'd never been present in our marriage before. I had to kiss her every two seconds just to make sure she was still there. But she always was."

The older man wore an expression of benign indulgence. "I remember your wife well from the Vernissage last year. A lovely young woman."

Rhett nodded. "She is beautiful. And passionate. And sensual. I've always known what it could be like between us, from the first time I saw her." He grinned suddenly. "She was sixteen. She and I were both at a party of one of her neighbors, who was also a neurologist. A colleague of mine from Atlanta knew him and had brought me along." He smiled at the memory of the tiny spitfire she had been. "I had no idea how young she was, but I was immediately smitten. I tried to get her to go leave with me. Alas, I was roundly slapped for my impudence."

"In retrospect she would have been safer with me – at least if she had gotten around to telling me her age. She'd just been jilted by the man she was in love with, and was not in a very healthy frame of mind. Instead of surrendering to my advances she got into her first whisky bottle later that night with another boy at the party - and ended up pregnant."

"A shotgun marriage followed, and the poor boy died soon afterwards. A delicate constitution, apparently. And she was left a widow with a baby at barely seventeen. Enough to turn anyone off sex for life."

"That explains much," the other man agreed.

Rhett stepped over to one of the cherry-red barrister bookcases which lined the walls. "I haven't seen this before," he noted, pointing to a large, open volume on top of one of the bookcases. He stretched out his hands, spreading his fingers over the glossy pages without touching them.

"Carl Jung's 'Red Book' the other man replied conversationally, nothing in his face or mien divulging that the volume had been placed there before the session for a strategic purpose. "You may say it is something between a private journal and a philosophical treaty. Only recently published in its entirety. Please feel free to have a look."

Rhett picked up the heavy volume, his eyes wandering over the brightly colored images it contained. "I did not know Jung was also an artist."

"Some would dispute that claim," the older man said. "Some think Jung himself had a psychotic breakdown around the time he was working on this journal, and used writing and drawing as a way to anchor his thoughts to reality. The images are certainly unusual, as is the text."

"Eine Strasse ohne Ende," Rhett read above a picture of an Egyptian river boat, with a blue-green sea monster in the waters beneath. "A road without End."

"Do you read German?"

"Yes, although it is somewhat rusty." Rhett replied. "My father was a historian of some repute, as I'm sure you know." The older man nodded. "I've told you about our troubled relationship, but what I haven't mentioned before is how unhappy he was with my career choice. He called medicine a 'contemptible hybrid, without the purity of mathematics or the grace and beauty of the Fine Arts.' He said, and I quote 'if money is what drives you, you might as well go, for you won't find it here.' In retrospect I understand he saw my choice as a rejection of everything he had dedicated his life to – which, in a sense, it was."

"An unusual viewpoint for a father," the other man observed. "but not unheard of for a truly dedicated scholar. However, I may note you seem learned enough despite …." he smiled…"having embraced the Mammon, and straying from the path of true virtue."

Rhett shrugged. "I am certainly not a scholar, like my father. I admit to broad intellectual curiosity. I traveled far, and read much and speak several languages, but I have not the inclination to devote myself and my energy to a single narrow topic, like the Reign of Diocletian - as my father did - for the rest of my life. I am too prone to boredom. I need constant and varied intellectual stimulation.

"And physical outlets?"

"Yes," Rhett acknowledged. "I've always wanted to live life through my senses as well as my intellect. I learned to sail at an early age. Taming the elemental forces of the wind and the sea was exhilarating and overpowering. Later, I discovered the pleasure of sex, which was a similarly overwhelming experience for the boy that I was."

He continued to turn the pages of the large volume. "I recognize many of the mythological themes. There is the Serpent - or is it the Worm? - gnawing on the roots of the Tree of Life. Nordic, is it?"

"Indeed. The Tree of Life. A symbol you also see in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, and even in the Jewish creation story."

Rhett laughed. "It's been ages since I brooded over the finer points of Genesis. I do remember the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And Eve and the Apple, of course. _Cherchez la Femme_."

"There _is_ mention of a Tree of Life in the story of Adam and Eve, although it does not play a central role. It is simply mentioned – perhaps a relict from the earlier versions of the tale. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, however, takes precedence, and it is from that tree that Eve takes the fated apple." The older man turned his bright eyes on Rhett. "An interesting theological shift from the old quest for Immortality to the pain and sacrifices that come with acquiring Knowledge and Understanding."

Rhett smiled his old sardonic smile. "Knowledge can bring great pain. And result in a permanent ban from paradise."

"Ah, but paradise is only a beginning, of course. The real work of life is outside the garden, where we till the fields and bear children under the shadow of death."

And here was the point, the message he had been building up to through winding paths over the course of the hour. He only hoped it would take.

"For now, you and your wife are still in paradise, and everything seems easy and natural. But sometime soon, you will have to leave, and the entrance will be sealed by two angels brandishing swords of fire, if you will. But you will leave for the plains beyond, this time, armed with knowledge of your strengths and your weaknesses, and the depth of your love for one another. Tell me, Dr. Butler –" here he paused again, letting the silence of the room draw out for a few seconds –"

" What use will you make of that knowledge?"

~~oo~~

He told himself that he would remember this time until his dying day, even if it ended. That he would remember the silky softness of her skin. The way her body moved under and over and around him, glistening with sweat, until he no longer knew where he ended and she began. The way her green eyes bored into his, her face filled with unbearable desire and the innocent delight of a child plucked from the streets and set before an overflowing banquet table it had had no idea existed. How her soft lips traveled over his body. How her voice cried out with pleasure, utterly uninhibited and unrestrained.

And yet, when it ended, the devastation was complete.

She had kissed him before leaving for the store to buy groceries, kissed him as if she loved him, as if she hated to be away from him even for a brief moment. When she had returned a mere twenty minutes later, it was as if an old mask had clicked into place, and she once again receded into the far corners of her mind. Where she had lived throughout most of their marriage, where she had dreamt of Ashley Wilkes.

Where he could never follow.

He had tried for three days to talk to her about what had happened. Hoping against hope she would explain, that it would turn out to be something they could work through, move past.

Until, finally, he cornered her in the kitchen, where she was cutting tomatoes and herbs for a salad.

"If you want to withdraw now, Scarlett, after everything I've shared with you, after everything _we've _shared, you might as well take one of those knives and finish the job. There'll be nothing left of me this time. I can't go through this again. Not now."

She shuddered at the finality in his voice, lifting tear-stained eyes to meet his. And then she said the last thing that he had expected to hear.

"I'm pregnant."


	14. Chapter 14

_Disclaimer: As in the first chapter._

_Warning: if you've struggled with health problems in your family, especially with regards to children, you may want to skip this. It was hard to write, and it may be equally hard to read._

* * *

Shock and fear converged, impairing his ability to process. Before he could stop himself, he uttered the first, inane thought that went through his mind.

"I thought you were on the pill."

She scowled at him. "I am," she shot back. "I mean, I _was._ I stopped now."

"Then …"

"I must have had a break-though ovulation," she murmured faintly, falling back on the cold, impersonal terms of their trade.

He did not doubt her. Future procreation involving both of their genetic material should have taken place in a Petri dish, with the embryos undergoing pre-implantation genetic screening before getting anywhere near her womb. Neither of them would have been insane enough to leave it up to chance, given a choice.

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "I'm sorry Scarlett. But why in hell …." He didn't go on.

_Why in hell didn't you tell me. Why in hell did you let me suffer the torment of the damned, thinking you were withdrawing from me again._

She said nothing, her small hand still clutching the knife.

"I didn't know what to do," she finally whispered. "It seemed like we had finally found each other, and now I was going to lose you, again. If I ended the pregnancy, you'd hate me for it. If the baby …had CF, I would lose you, too. I can't go there again Rhett – I just can't."

The dark, empty nights alone in her bed while he was in Minneapolis with Bonnie. The women he had seen there. That life he had lived, apart from her. The deep, soul-searing agony of Bonnie's illness and death. It had almost killed him. Her. Them.

She couldn't.

"You're not going to –"

"I don't know!" she yelled, turning her back on him. "That was the other thing I was afraid of. That you'd _bully_ me into a decision just like you did the last time. I won't let you, Rhett. It was mine to make then. It is mine to make, now. It is _mine_, do you hear me, it will always be mine."

He turned cold before her eyes. "Is it," he replied, his voice suddenly silky and dangerous. "And I suppose I have nothing to say about the matter?" He looked as if he hated her now, he who had only so recently looked at her with so much love.

How had they come to this?

"No," she said, softly. "I mean, yes. Of course you can say what you think. Of course we discuss it. But in the end ….. it is _mine."_ There was defiance in her face now, and a strange, protective twist to her frame, half-turned away from him, her free hand resting on her abdomen. But she was right. By the laws of men and nature, she was right.

The only thing potentially stronger than either was the force of his will.

Only a few years ago, he would have berated her, forced her into submission. _Had_ berated her. Had forced her into submission. But he was not that man anymore.

"All right, Scarlett," he said, utter defeat in his voice. "What do we do now?"

Her pale green eyes held ineffable grief.

"We wait."

~~oo~~

The weeks crawled by with agonizing slowness. The advent of September brought the return of Wade and Ella from their extended trip in Ireland with Gerald. They took to life in the townhouse, and to the news of their parent's reconciliation, with barely disguised glee. For them, it was a dream come true. A tiny hope, unvoiced previously, now joyfully asserted.

Gerald stayed for a few days before returning to Tara, delighted at the news of their reconciliation, and not astute enough to notice the tension underneath their polished facades.

They told him nothing about the baby.

Before the pregnancy had thrown everything into disarray, during that intoxicating, rosy glow of their honeymoon, they had discussed buying a house close to the hospital. Staring over together as a family. That happy, carefree time almost seemed to belong to a different life.

Scarlett wasn't sure how they stood now, what would happen to their marriage if she were forced to chose between an elective abortion and a chronically, perhaps terminally ill child.

She was grateful for the distraction, to the return of a rhythm to their lives, so like and yet unlike the life they had had before. Homework. Sibling squabbles. Loud music. Laughter.

Ultrasound confirmed the pregnancy, and at week nine she and Rhett were able to see their child's pulsating heartbeat on the screen. They shared a quick glance, afraid to give voice to their delight.

And slowly, it became clear that things had indeed changed.

They were still having sex. Not the sensual, intoxicating sex of the second honeymoon, but neither were they reverting back to the cool, impersonal encounters of the early days of their marriage. She still _saw_ him. He did not shut her out.

And, perhaps even more amazingly, they were still talking.

Hesitatingly, brokenly, as if every word was a branch laid over a crevasse that might plunge them into the abyss. But they persisted.

He had taken her to dinner one night, leaving the children with the babysitter. This time, to a bustling, popular restaurant, where they could lose themselves in the crowd. He had demanded a quiet table by the window.

They had talked about the hospital and their patients until the main course came.

He had taken her hand, for all the world like besotted new lovers. She had waited. "The worst part is ….. I feel that rejecting this baby would amount to rejecting Bonnie's life. That we're saying - that it was _too much_, either for her or for us. That she shouldn't have been here." He dragged his hand through his thick, dark hair. "And I don't know how to feel about that, Scarlett. I want to say all the right things, that we will get through this together no matter what, that we will make the right decision." A painful breath drawn. "But the truth is …_ I just don't know._"

She had nodded. "I understand."

The morning sickness, unwelcome and welcome at the same time. The soft, almost imperceptible rounding of her abdomen. The glow to her skin, to her hair. Her body reorganizing itself to support a new life, giving the abstract an almost unbearable reality.

~~oo~~

On week eleven, Scarlett lay in an impersonal office room on a cold exam bench, waiting for the chorion villus sampling. Rhett stood beside her, his expression blank.

Dr. Gina Walters, whom they had chosen for her expertise with the needle and excellent miscarriage rates, explained the procedure to them again in detail. A thin needle would be put through the abdominal wall and the wall of the uterus, collecting a tiny number of cells from the fetal part of the placenta. These cells would be sent in for genetic testing. There might be cramps. There might be bleeding. There might be amnionic fluid leakage. There was always the risk of infection. There was a small risk of losing the pregnancy altogether.

Did they have any questions?

They shook their heads mutely. At this point, they both knew every step by heart, including potential complications.

Dr. Walters excused herself briefly, and left them alone in the room.

There was the ominous, humming silence in the air, that vibrates through rooms that decide over life and death.

Scarlett grabbed his hand. "I want to keep her," she said, suddenly.

From the beginning, when she had first seen the double line on the pregnancy test in the dingy drugstore restroom stall, the baby had always been a _her_ in her mind.

He started out of some dark reverie. "What did you say?"

"I want to keep her," she repeated. "No matter what the test says." At his questioning look, she whispered: "If ….something does go wrong, if I miscarry, I can't bear losing her thinking that I didn't want her."

There were tears on her cheeks now, tears that could become a torrent of agony if left to drip unchecked. Bonnie. It had been later in the pregnancy, and at a different hospital, and it had been an amniocentesis instead of a chorion villus sampling- but the memories were relentless. He pressed her hand, and briefly bent down to kiss her pale lips.

"_I love you, Scarlett."_ He couldn't say it out loud. The humming drowned out all sound, all voice, becoming louder and louder until it filled the entire world.

The nurse came back with the procedure tray, looking professional and perky.

_Not her life. Not her baby._

"Do you want your husband to stay?"

Scarlett nodded silently.

"Ok." Her cheerfulness was grating.

Dr. Walters returned, casting pitying glances at their wet cheeks. As custom dictated, she handed Scarlett tissues, but pretended not to see Rhett.

"It will be alright," she said, with all the pseudo-optimism she could muster. She was wholly aware of their medical history, Scarlett thought darkly, and knew she should not be making such promises.

Still, she was very good with a needle.

Rhett held her hand through the entire procedure. He watched a long needle pass through his wife's abdomen without fainting. There was a little pain, but Scarlett hardly noticed.

And then they waited again. _One in four._ Scarlett tried telling herself those were _good_ odds. She even tried to tell herself that having lost the dice-roll once before meant their odds must be somehow be improved - but her brain, useless for the fine arts, was unfortunately much better suited for mathematics. Prior outcomes meant nothing for the probability of each individual throw of the dice.

_One in four._

Scarlett knew that the genetic analysis would probably be back in about three days. She semi-illegally used her access to the hospital's electronic medical records to stalk her own file.

This option was one of the reasons they had elected to go with an ob-gyn group from their own medical school. There was no way, Scarlett had noted grimly to Rhett, that she would sit through another phone-call like last time. _No matter what._

On the screen in front of her, there was an icon that resembled a broken link under "genetic testing". The picture of a broken link would disappear once the report had come back from the lab.

There was nothing in all of Tuesday. She had not expected it to be. Nothing on Wednesday. She would text Rhett: _Nothing yet._ He never answered her. She didn't know if he, too, was checking the file.

On Thursday, she logged herself in from work, in the resident's lounge, at 8:00. The broken link icon was still there. She checked again from the ER at 8:45. Still there. From the nurses station at 9:30.

Still there.

And from the COW, the mobile Computer-on-Wheels, during rounds at 10:00.

The broken link icon was gone. Instead, there was the small 'report' icon, that looked like a tiny scroll.

It had an exclamation mark next to it - indicating an abnormal test result. A flag for the provider.

She did not open it. But she felt her legs buckle, and had to steady herself against the wall.

She had to endure two more hours of rounds, knowing that the future of her life was contained in that link. She excused herself immediately after running the list with the other residents, dashing to the back stairs and running up to the seventh floor, where the attendings' offices were.

She barged into Rhett's office without knocking.

He was alone. It did not appear that he was doing anything in particular, aside from staring into space.

"The broken link icon is gone," she said, breathlessly. And then, knowing he would see it anyways - "There's an exclamation mark."

He blanched, immediately catching the implications. "It might be heterozygous. They _might_ flag that."

"They might." Hope. Foolish, foolish hope.

"Shall we see?" he asked, heavily. "Unless you….."

"I want to look," she replied.

"You do it," he said. She noticed that his hands were trembling violently.

She pulled up another chair in front of his screen. Her own hands, her trained physician's hands, were shaking as she punched in the oft-used login and password for the electronic medical record system. She had to repeat the password twice.

Under "patient station", her name. Click. "Results review". Click. "Genetic testing". Click.

There was the link.

She took a deep breath. She glanced at Rhett, whose eyes seemed dark and glazed over. She was not sure he was seeing anything at all.

Click. The screen was filled with their future.

A long, detailed report, with many incomprehensible words. Her hands now shaking violently, she scrolled downwards. 46 XX, her brain took in.

A girl.

Scrolling.

There it was.

_Impression: Heterozygous for the _ΔF508 _CF mutation._

A carrier.

She turned to Rhett, who still wore the same blank expression on his face as minutes earlier. He had seen, read nothing.

She threw himself into his arms, weeping as if all the rivers of the world were pouring from her eyes. His arms went mechanically around her.

"She's _ok_," she cried.. "Rhett, our little girl is ok!"

* * *

_Thank you for all the wonderful reviews, and I apologize for taking so long to update! I hope it was worth the wait. For you non-medical folks, a person needs two bad copies of the gene to develop cystic fibrosis, so with only one bad copy, this baby is fine. Now the only question is - can they finally be happy?_

_Oh, and Helen - your turn! :-)_


	15. Chapter 15

_Here it is. Thank you, everyone, for your kind words and your encouragement to finish this story. I may do a how-they-met as an epilogue, but for now, this is it. Thanks especially to Dixie, who was willing to produce an update of her own to entice me to finish (and really, who could resist an offer like that?) Apologies in advance to the FFVs, who are actually quite nice. *grin* I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

She stopped the stroller briefly to re-adjust the blanket across the baby's chest. The habitual July heat had broken for a day or two, and there was a fresh breeze coming in from the invisible sea that lurked silently behind every house or stretch of land on the Peninsula. She was dressed in blue jeans and a grey t-shirt, her long black hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. She looked impossibly young and carefree, almost offensively so, considering her status as a new mother. She hadn't felt this way after giving birth to Wade and Ella. And especially not Bonnie. She had felt frightened, and insecure, and helpless.

And that feeling had only gotten worse over time.

Madison opened her black eyes, and made a meowing sound - not quite hunger yet, although it was close to her feeding time. Scarlett laughed. Everything about Madison made her laugh, the faces she'd pull, or the intent look of concentration on her tiny features when she was nursing.

Rhett had briefly protested: "Really, Scarlett. Just because it's fashionable nowadays to saddle innocent children with someone's last name doesn't mean _we_ have to do it, too" – but it quickly became clear that he would have let her choose _Minnie Mouse_ or _Moon Unit_ if it made her happy, so delighted was he that the baby was healthy. That the pregnancy was going well. That they were finally a real family.

"Think of the cups," Scarlett had ribbed. "If we pick any of _your_ odd suggestions, she'll never be able to find one with her name on it! I listened to Charles when it came to naming Wade, and _he's_ never stopped complaining that his name is ….weird."

"I never had a cup with my name on it."

"And see where that got you!"

Rhett had rolled his eyes, and then he had kissed her. He was always kissing her these days.

So _Madison Chloe Butler_ she became, both names selected from the Social Security "top ten most popular baby names" database of the current year, and gleefully strung together.

Madison was a chubby, contented baby with her father's dark coloring and black eyes. And, her grandmother asserted humorously, _a definite contrarian streak_, which Madison demonstrated by arriving a week after her due date, and flipping position several times before deciding she preferred to leave the womb the old-fashioned way after all. But only _after_ Scarlett's ob-gyn had threatened her with a c-section.

Rhett had been as white as a sheet during the entire six-hour delivery, apparently convinced that fate would snatch happiness away from him at the last minute in dramatic day-time soap-opera style, by having the mother die, or the baby, or both. But the birth turned out to be a complete anti-climax, over in the blink of an eye with nary a beep out of the fetal monitors tied to Scarlett's mid-section. The neonatologist, whom Rhett had bribed to attend the delivery despite it not being standard protocol, barely glanced up from the _The Wall Street Journal_. Seeing Rhett bent over Madison's swaddled form for the first time, seeing the expression of dazed disbelief on his features, was something that would have made Scarlett cry, had she been that sentimental. Which of course she wasn't, she thought, surreptitiously wiping the tears away.

But yes – she could admit it. They were blessed. _She_ was blessed, beyond what she would have thought possibly only a year earlier.

Rhett's coddling and pampering of both mother and baby she had expected, and finally allowed herself to revel in. What she had _not_ expected was that he would send her, his house-keeper and cleaning woman in tow, for a week to their old house in Hampton to peacefully bond with the infant. While _he_ took Wade and Ella on a fun-and-candy filled tour to Disney World.

She had seen the old panic glimmer in his eyes at the thought of letting _his child_ out of his sight for even a moment - at the thought of trusting his child to _her _in particular - and appreciated all the more his determination to go through with it anyways. Madison's chubby, robust physique invited confidence in her resilience, but this gesture went deeper. It acknowledged the mistakes of the past, and his intent to parent this child together.

Perhaps even more than the gesture, she appreciated his willingness to communicate his fears, letting her inside his mind in ways that still felt frightening and raw to both of them.

"You'll remember to…."

"Yes, Rhett. I _will _remember," she'd said, her green eyes dancing at his sheepish expression. This was also new, their willingness to laugh at themselves.

A few days after the results of the test had come back, Rhett had told her of his intent to renew their vows in front of their family and friends. _In a church_. Scarlett had rolled her eyes ….she was very busy with her last year of residency. She was pregnant, and working full-time, and didn't have much energy left over for impractical romantic gestures that would involve months of planning. She didn't even _like _ninety-five percent of the _First Families of Virginia_ that would be attending such an event.

And that was a generous estimate.

It was Rosemary who, with customary forthrightness, had filled her in. "Don't be daft, Scarlett. He's doing this to show all of the old busybodies at the Beach that he's not taking you back _just because of the child_. And there will come a time when that matters, both for you and for the baby_._ "

So she had played along. Thankfully, her mother-in-law, aided ably by Rosemary, had taken over most of the preparations. Rhett had somehow produced a Unitarian Minister willing to renew the vows of an Atheist and a lapsed Catholic on hallowed ground. Scarlett had worn a green dress specifically tailored for her by a design student friend of Rosemary's, which flowed about her in so many silky layers that it concealed her rounding belly, but somehow still managed to highlight her stunning figure. The church had been packed. There had been a sea of flowers and bows and hats. And strangely enough, after seeing Rhett beam brighter than a one thousand watt light bulb at the altar, and Scarlett's maidenly blush, people were ….kind. Congratulated them on the baby. Complimented her on Wade and Ella's charming manners, even though Ella had barreled backwards into a beverage table, and spilled champagne over at least six designer dresses to boot.

That attitude of goodwill had cropped up in the hospital as well. Belle Watling had smiled genuinely at her in the hallway, and one evening on night shift Scarlett had caught herself hanging out at the nurses' station, swapping baby stories with Nurse Elsing over lukewarm coffee, instead of disappearing into her office as usual.

"Aren't you worried I could be developing pre-senile dementia?" she had asked Rhett. He had merely laughed, and kissed her again.

Scarlett had decided to sign up for a very low-key VA job after graduating. Predicable hours, no calls. All outpatient work. Not tremendously exciting – she grumbled she'd mostly be seeing migraines and substance-induced neuropathies – but compatible with having a family. And she'd taken the entire summer off to spend time with the baby. Not exactly the fast-paced fellowship at a top medical school she had envisioned as her next step after graduation, but this was somehow … better.

They were building a new house on the waterfront in Norfolk, but it would not be ready for another few months. Close to their work. With a big yard. Next to colleagues with children, who might, over time, become … friends.

She saw Rhett's BMW drive into the street, and her heart leapt. She saw three doors open at once, the children flying out and running towards her, her husband close behind.

He kissed _her_ first. For a long, sensual moment, a moment that reminded her just why she was so glad to have him back. Only then did he turn to the baby. Which was all kinds of incredible, if one thought about it.

And a part of her still wondered when the other shoe would drop.

~~oo~~

Four months later, she and Rhett were at the Virginia Opera for the opening night of _Carmen_. It was their first night out together as a couple after Madison's birth. She had threatened to fall asleep, and he had threatened to tickle her mercilessly if she did. But really, she didn't care what they were going to see, as long as she got to dress up outrageously (figure almost back, thank you very much), admire Rhett in his black suit, and hold his hand, and giggle about the performance.

They were always laughing, these days.

She pointed out Anne Hampton in the crowd, possessively holding the arm of a junior partner at the local hotshot malpractice law firm, and looking as if she belonged. Scarlett successfully bit back a comment about the effect of her dress on the size of the other girl's derrière. Somehow, such things no longer mattered as much.

During the intermission, Rhett suddenly pulled her towards an older couple standing together in one of the alcoves. A tall, silver-haired gentleman, and a smaller, round-faced woman with gentle white curls.

Rhett's arm was around her shoulder. "Scarlett. I want you to meet my therapist, Dr. Steinberg. Dr. Steinberg – my wife."

The other man took her hand, and smiled at her. She took it in, that smile, its warmth, its heart-felt delight. In it, she saw herself and Rhett reflected as they were now – beautiful, radiant, happy. Wrapped in each other's arms.

And she knew, suddenly, that things were going to be all right. Perhaps better than all right.


End file.
